Well, here's a different take on a retirement community. The LA Times has an interesting article, Room Under the Rainbow, on gay retirement communities mulling over the straight retirees moving in. RainbowVision (damn that Dorothy) is a gay retirement community on the outskirts of Santa Fe. When they first opened it was promoted almost entirely within the gay community. Of course, housing discrimination laws in NM include sexual orientation, and the housing market slowdown has left many homes on the market. Some sellers have opened their doors to the straight community, swinging open the debate over a gay majority wide open.
It's an interesting dimlemma. Gay seniors overcame obstacles people of my generation never had to deal with. For most residents, it's a matter of safety. Their own. After a lifetime of living with homophobia, they simply want to retire without it. Of course, I'd prefer to retire in a city of 12 million in the heart of the West Village, but my retirement savings aren't quite up to speed...
4 comments:
It would be interesting to go through the retirement community and do intereviews with the residents. I'm sure all of them have incredible stories of what it's like to be gay in their generation...but I digress...
Do you think that homophobic people would move into a retirement community that is predominantly gay? And since straight seniors would be outnumbered, would the dynamics change a lot?
i know, right! i love talking to the older generation. it's so crazy, some of their stories...
they interview one straight man who purposefully moved there b/c his whole life he loved the arts and the artistic community. i'm not so sure the dynamics would change a lot. i think most interviewed are just wary of unforseen change. they are seniors, after all :)
I'm with Ms M&P, since I kinda doubt homophobic people would want to live in a gay retirement community. That said, I can see why most of them might be resistant. Their glory days were those when you had vice cops out looking for them.......oh wait, Larry Craig's cop anyone?
Seriously, that just popped into my head. Anyway, maybe if they had a person sign some sort of form saying "I understand bigotry isn't allowed here and I'll be forced to relocate if I'm a bigot."
Post a Comment