Earlier this week, some of us working on elder LGBT issues watched a screening of the documentary “A Place To Live: The Story of Triangle Square. ” Triangle Square is the LGBT-friendly senior living facility in Los Angeles. It is the only one in the nation up and running.
The film starts out by highlighting the lives of some of L.A.’s elder population. You see the story of their lives and how they arrived at their station in life. You meet a lesbian who is one step away from being homeless, an actor who was proclaimed the star of tomorrow three years in a row — 1974, ’75 and ’76 — but never made it, a man whose only dream is to go to the market with his granddaughter on Sundays, a lesbian who can only afford to move into a dilapidated trailer in a rundown trailer park, an African-American man who lives in a dangerous neighborhood far from the LGBT community, and a man who designs floats for the Rose Parade and is HIV-positive.
The film gives you a biography of their lives. Many from that age group spent a long time in the closet; many married to hide themselves; others had children. Some even were put in mental institutions by loved ones who wanted to “cure” them. Along the way, we realize that our elders have problems that we as a community never realized or, worse, haven’t dealt with.
The film next turns its attention to the plan to build Triangle Square and the process these applicants must go through to be picked as tenants. The film shows the grand opening with those who were chosen, and those who weren’t, and then moving in for those first lucky few who now live in a community, many for the first time in their lives.
The film will make you laugh, but it will also make you cry. It is the first major portrayal of the problems of LGBT seniors, a group that is almost invisible in our very community.
The documentary makes it crystal clear that despite the last 40 years of building community, we have not arrived as a full community until we start looking at elder problems and find solutions. Ask yourself, how many LGBT seniors do you know and how much about them do you actually know? Do you know about their concerns? Their problems? Most of all, do you know what their hope for the future is?
This issue is as important as endangered LGBT youth, but doesn’t have the sizzle. The important issues for our community cannot only be legislation or policy; they must also be humanitarian. While we’re looking for beds for LGBT homeless youth, isn’t it time to consider looking for some beds for LGBT elders and keeping it from happening to others? It’s our duty to think about those in our community in need. That is what makes a real community.
Mark Segal, PGN publisher, is the nation’s most-award-winning commentator in LGBT media. He can be reached at [email protected].