HOUSING
Brooklyn’s LGBTQ Senior Housing Set to Open
SAGE-led project ready in Fort Greene; Bronx building to follow late winter
BY PAUL SCHINDLER
When the Ingersoll Senior
Residences adjacent
to Fort Greene
Park on Brooklyn’s
Myrtle Avenue open for occupancy
as early as next month, the 16-story,
145-unit apartment building
will not be the nation’s fi rst affordable,
LGBTQ-friendly elder housing
development. But it will be the
largest to date.
Created through a partnership
between SAGE, Advocacy & Services
for LGBT Elders, and the development
fi rm BFC Partners, Ingersoll
is also unique, said SAGE
CEO Michael Adams, in being
“intentionally built as an intersectional
community.”
Similar LGBTQ-friendly senior
housing already exists in cities
including Philadelphia, Chicago,
Minneapolis, San Francisco, and
Los Angeles — and have typically
been sited in the “gayborhood,” in
New York generally thought to be
Chelsea, a predominantly white
community that has become increasingly
expensive.
The greatest need for affordable
housing to serve LGBTQ seniors
in New York, however, is in communities
of color. For that reason,
Adams explained, for the fi rst two
projects his group embarked on
here, SAGE chose Fort Greene, a
longtime African-American community,
and the largely Spanishspeaking
East Tremont section of
the Bronx, where a second development,
Crotona Senior Residences,
will open at a site across from
Crotona Park in early 2020.
Ingersoll is built on the existing
grounds of the New York City
Housing Authority (NYCHA) Ingersoll
Houses in a neighborhood that
is undergoing widespread gentrifi
cation. In fact, the new building
is not so different in appearance
from upscale apartment and
condo high rises that have mushroomed
throughout Fort Greene
and Downtown Brooklyn, leading
some Ingersoll Houses residents
and their neighbors to worry, Adams
said, that the new senior development
SAGE CEO Michael Adams at the group’s annual gala on October 21.
A rendering of the Ingersoll Senior Residences in Fort Greene, due to open in December.
is a part of that wave.
In fact, the ground rules for accepting
applicants to the Ingersoll
Residences were set up to serve seniors
with the greatest need. Under
the income limits that govern renting
in the building, where tenants
will make use of federal Section 8
vouchers, couples have an income
upper limit of just under $42,000,
while single residents face a cap of
just under $37,000.
Fifty-four of the units are reserved
for people who already live
in NYCHA housing or are waitlisted
for it, while 25 percent of
the units will go to those who have
DONNA ACETO
BFC PARTNERS/ MARVEL ARCHITECTS
been homeless. On that second criterion,
SAGE had to shape a novel
approach to work around how the
city generally defi nes meeting that
requirement. Homeless status
under existing affordable housing
programs has meant living in
a shelter, but SAGE successfully
argued that many members of the
LGBTQ community without a permanent
home avoid the shelters
out of concern about their safety
around other residents who may
harbor homophobic and transphobic
prejudices. SAGE and the city
were able to come to agreement on
a more fl exible defi nition of what
qualifi es as having been homeless.
Under city and state nondiscrimination
statutes, of course, Ingersoll
cannot rent exclusively to LGBTQ
seniors, and Adams estimated
that almost half of the initial residents
will be non-LGBTQ, even as
the building in other important respects
is designed to meet the specifi
c needs of the queer community,
both in terms of “wrap-around”
social and health services and in
having a 6,000-square-foot SAGE
Center on site. That Center will
serve both Ingersoll residents and
the outside community. Though
SAGE will not own or manage the
residential building, it will oversee
the Center, which will include case
management and urgent health
care aimed at providing a bridge to
fuller service providers.
In a city as vast and expensive
as New York, there is a crying need
for affordable housing for seniors
from all its diverse communities,
but SAGE’s recognition of the specifi
c needs facing LGBTQ elders is
evidence-based. A survey of 3,000
LGBTQ elders by SAGE found signifi
cant anxiety about facing discrimination
in senior housing and
that those elders are more likely
than their straight peers to live
alone and, especially among lesbians
and transgender folks, have
fewer fi nancial resources. One in
eight gay men and lesbians reported
facing discrimination in searching
for senior housing, with a full
25 percent of transgender people
reporting the same.
A 10-state study carried out by
the Equal Rights Center found
that discrimination is more widespread
than community members
themselves perceive or report. Two
hundred pairs of same-sex and
different-sex couples were sent into
senior housing facilities as testers
to identify discrimination. In 48
percent of the tests across the 10
states, the experiment uncovered
discrimination against gay and
lesbian applicants. Discrimination
occurred even in states and
localities with LGBTQ civil rights
➤ SENIOR HOUSING, continued on p.17
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