THE BIG IDEA
THE MISSION - We won’t rest until New York City’s LGBTQ+ older adults can live in safe, welcoming housing they can afford, with access to health and mental health services capable of meeting their unique needs.
THE ISSUE - New York City’s senior housing crisis is only just beginning, with the 65+ population projected to grow by 40% between 2010 and 2040. LGBTQ+ older adults face additional extraordinary challenges: lack of family support networks; more pronounced health and mental health challenges; more widespread poverty; and fear of discrimination and abuse within the eldercare system
THE GOAL - Our goal is to grow our young community development corporation enough within the next three years to be a viable partner in creating and preserving affordable LGBTQ-welcoming senior housing and contracting the appropriate services for those residents.
THE STRATEGY - Our value add as a brick and mortar partner is our non-profit status (which commercial developers need in order to access grants, tax credits, etc); our community development corporation toolkit, our ongoing market profile research, and the ground game we are building through community education and organizing. All of this work will be invaluable for creating community support for land use processes, raising legacy funds, and creation a trained-up pre-marketing audience.
OUR OBJECTIVES
1. Increase the number of affordable senior housing units in the City by partnering with developers in new construction and preservation projects, ensuring management and operating standards that produce a welcoming environment for LGBTQ+ older adults.
2. Develop design-based solutions for other strategies aside from construction including home-sharing, co-living/intentional communities, aging in place support, and tenant defense. Design these strategies to be responsive to the needs and realities of LGBTQ+ older adults.
3. Provide the community with information and resources that engage and activate them on behalf of these goals. By cultivating, educating, and engaging the LGBTQ+ community, we help our older adults participate in developing these strategies, which ensures, by design, that the solutions will serve their needs.
4. Work to identify isolated and underserved LGBTQ+ older adults and connect them to service providers who understand their unique challenges and treat them with respect.
THE BENCHMARKS SO FAR
1. Create an evidence-based market profile to fill the data void on this population.
Report on 1st ever citywide Survey of LGBTQ+ Housing Needs
– released September 2017
2. Create a community partner network of resources to help people learn how to find and achieve their best personal housing outcomes, including health and mental health service provision.
Over 50 organizations and agencies and growing
3. Create a technology platform to engage the population directly, connecting them to these resources, educating and organizing the community to understand these issues, and preparing LGBTQ+ seniors to assume leadership roles in the movement for welcoming housing and services.
Stonewall Village NYC® BETA Test and site redesign completed. Opened to the public - December 2019
4. Convene affordable housing and service provider sectors with policymakers to explore alternative design and financing models. Mixed-use, mixed-income/mid-market; creative condo-leasing strategies, cross-subsidies, apartment sharing, co-living, and micro-design are all on the table.
First Bricks & Mortar Brain Trust Charrette April 2019
5. Build the community development corporation toolkit.
Stonewall CDC is now certified by NYC Housing Preservation
and Development (HPD) as a Housing Ambassador and
Marketing Agent. The next training we will undergo is in
syndicating tax credits.