28 THE QUEENS COURIER • HEALTH CARE NOW • APRIL 16, 2020 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
health care now
LGBTQ seniors endure unique challenges in coronavirus crisis
BY MATT TRACY
editorial@qns.com
@QNS
While Americans nationwide have experienced
signifi cant life changes during the
coronavirus era, LGBTQ seniors have also
been coping with an array of unique hardships
of their own while also confronting
the elevated health risks they face due to
age-related comorbidities.
Th e pandemic led to a spike in food
insecurity among seniors during the earliest
days of the crisis, and the drawnout
stay-at-home guidelines have escalated
feelings of loneliness, underscoring the
impact the virus has had on a population
that is already marginalized.
“Of course food insecurity was a problem
for a lot of LGBT elders prior to this
and then this just exacerbated it,” said
Steven Wilkinson, the senior director of
programs and services at Advocacy &
Services for LGBT Elders (SAGE), which
serves queer seniors in the U.S. and is
headquartered in New York City.
While seniors are at elevated risk of
severe coronavirus cases or even death,
there is also a signifi cant share of queer
seniors who are also HIV-positive and
immune-compromised. SAGE clients
who are especially vulnerable have avoided
getting sick by refusing to leave their
homes throughout the crisis, which presented
new dilemmas: Th ose who were
accustomed to eating meals at senior centers
could no longer do so and many
could not to simply order carry-out or
delivery food frequently as an alternative.
During the early days of the crisis,
SAGE handed out fi ve grab-and-go
meals to their members every week —
two meals on Tuesday and three meals
on Th ursday. At the end of March, the
city Department for the Aging (DFTA)
stepped up and rolled out a new delivery
program: Instead of having to leave
their apartments and risk infection, those
who go to senior centers and are 60 years
or older get fi ve meals per week delivered
directly to their homes — though some
folks say they’ve had diffi culty connecting
with that option.
Wilkinson said SAGE started preparing
for the crisis three weeks before the mid-
March shelter-in-place order, and now,
even as the organization’s staff works from
home, the team has focused its eff orts on
checking in with their members, ensuring
adequate food delivery and services,
continuing classes and programs virtually,
and establishing ways that clients can
communicate with each other through
video chat or phone calls in a broader
eff ort to reduce social isolation.
“Now that food is being addressed,
we’re dealing with people who are feeling
socially isolated,” Wilkinson said. “Th e
calls that were fi ve minutes now can run
30 or 45 minutes because they’re missing
their friends at centers and they’re missing
just being social.”
To that end, dozens of SAGE’s existing
programs are continuing on a remote-only
basis, including exercise classes, writing
classes, Spanish and English as a second
language, and support groups. Th e social
distancing requirements that have bred
loneliness were implemented abruptly out
of necessity.
At senior living environments such as
Stonewall House, an LGBTQ-friendly
residential building in Fort Greene,
Brooklyn, that is operated by SAGE, no
guests are allowed in the building, there
are no deliveries except to the front desk,
and SAGE staff ers go door-to-door twice
per week to check on residents, hand out
masks, and distribute bags of food from
local pantries.
LGBTQ seniors who spoke to Gay City
News have echoed the concerns of many
of their cohorts. Out lesbian native New
Yorker Lujira Cooper — a 73-year-old
writer and student who is working on
her second bachelor’s degree and already
has a master’s degree — lives alone in
Manhattan and has been receiving food
deliveries. She only goes out about a few
times per week for necessities and, like
others, she has felt the impact of the crisis.
Although she considers herself to be more
of a “hermit,” the social isolation
has become so profound that she
has found herself yearning for
more in-person interaction.
“I miss people,” said
Cooper, who has had to
maintain social contact with
others on a virtual basis as
of late. “I miss talking, having
face-to-face conversions,
and I miss being in
my writing group. I just miss
being out and watching people.
As a writer, I like to watch
people and get ideas about
creating characters.”
She added, “I like to stay
in because I like to stay in, not
because I have to stay in. It’s diffi
cult to be forced to stay in.”
Another out senior,
68-year-old Richard
Daniels, who lives
in Manhattan with his husband, Stanley
Goldberg, said the couple has also experienced
life changes during the crisis.
Th ey have been trying to get food deliveries
from the DFTA, but Daniels said “that
never materialized.”
Daniels conveyed that Goldberg
requires a more complicated level of care
because he is older. “So I go to the store
much more than he does,” Daniels said.
But, like Cooper, the pair has nonetheless
remained engaged.
Th ey recently attended a virtual birthday
party and participated in a virtual
Seder dinner, and Daniels has maintained
a busy schedule participating
in virtual programs
via SAGE,
including support
groups, meditation
groups and
yoga classes.
Those who
work with
seniors also
have had to grapple
with the reality
that not everyone
can aff ord the
devices or
internet connection necessary for virtual
socialization.
Other seniors also face barriers because
they might not be as technologically savvy
as others, preventing them from participating
in video chats. SAGE is continuing
to explore ways to bring queer
senior together, regardless of those issues.
Among those ideas include the possibility
of distributing devices to clients who lack
the equipment to participate.
Another way is to foster communication
by phone instead of video conferencing.
“Some tend to call into groups, so some
support groups require a lot of phone
work with people on the conference call,”
Wilkinson said. “At least they’re connecting
and that’s a technology they’re familiar with.”
Th at kind of improvisation in the face
of an unprecedented crisis is not unique
during a time when people worldwide
have had to scramble to make necessary
adjustments on the fl y. Now, many weeks
into a crisis that has slammed New York
and expanded to all corners of the nation,
queer seniors are among those who are
looking forward the most to the time
when the virus is in the rear-view mirror.
But they have collectively shown great
resilience — even in the face of a crisis
during which they have been among the
most vulnerable.
Daniels, for example, said he is thankful
that he and his husband had moved into
the same apartment aft er having bounced
back and forth between their respective
homes for a long period.
And Cooper, who is single, is looking
at her own situation with a dose of optimism.
“I saw an article saying it’s hard
being single during COVID-19,
and I agree with that to a certain
extent,” Cooper said. “But
if you’re living with somebody,
you can go stir-crazy
living with them. Suppose
living with an abusive
person? I’m glad I live
by myself. I don’t want
to live with people. I
said I’ve been there,
done that.”
Courtesy of Lujira Cooper
Out lesbian New Yorker Lujira Cooper enjoys spending time alone, but she is among many seniors
who are missing the chance for face-to-face contact.
Courtesy of Richard
Daniels
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