esrosedotblog

Elderly housing, affordable and of good quality, can be hard to come by.

Harder still to come by if you are gay or lesbian or transgender. You would think that we would be over this but we are not. While the discrimination is subtle and sometimes, perhaps, unconscious, when there is a housing shortage, attitudes count. And marginal populations have to push a little harder to find a place.

Also, gay and lesbian elders are still from the generations that hid out. They were invisible.

That casts a long shadow on your life that is hard to shake.

In big urban areas, the housing laws do allow subsidized housing for minority groups. Being gay and lesbian puts us, after centuries of discrimination, in a favored group. One story about such a place is the subject of

A Place to Live, the Story of Triangle Square

a successful gay and lesbian elderly apartment complex in Los Angeles.

This is a very good documentary. It helps when there is a happy ending of the story but there are situations where people we see in the process are not going to make it through. The income tests, sometimes too much income; the randomness of selection, a lottery, all go to make it a suspenseful proposition. We watch a group of individuals through the process. Tears. Sadness. Joy. Success!

This is very well done. There are no villains. Only limited resources. Not enough room for everybody this time.

But the project's success is a beginning of, perhaps, other developments in LA or other places. Good times may lie ahead.

One question which might be asked by non-gay people, is why LGBT folks need a special place.

To them, I can only say "Please!", get your head out of your ass. There is enough discrimination in these people's lives to have to die in it. I am lucky. I came out, I had money, I had luck, I had a lot of things. Many do not. Lifetimes of barriers give one a certain attitude of doom. These people look past their fears and work toward what the odds say will be a likely failure. Too many applicants for everyone to make it.

Their motto is "TRY!!!".

Mine too.

If you can't watch the video, take time with this trailer.

Labels: films, gay films