In The Ghetto.

That is the question I like to ask, would you live in an elusive LGBTQ apartments or senior living center?

Many LGBTQ+ people do and they have many reasons for doing so and they range from fear of discrimination or violence to it is easier to find a partner. However, according to some reports the idea of LGBTQ+ housing is losing it appeal.

Once a Crucial Refuge, 'Gayborhoods' Lose LGBTQ Appeal in Major Cities
New York Times via Yahoo News
By Adam Nagourney
July 4, 2022


Cleve Jones has lived in the Castro neighborhood for nearly 50 years, almost from the day he graduated from high school in Phoenix and hitchhiked to California.

He has been a political and cultural leader, organizing gay men and lesbians when the AIDS epidemic devastated these streets in the early 1980s. He created the nationally recognized AIDS Memorial Quilt from a storefront on Market Street. He was a face of the anger and sorrow that swept the Castro in 1978 after the assassination of Harvey Milk, the first openly gay man elected to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors.

Jones has helped define the Castro, dancing at its gay bars seven nights a week when he was younger, gathering with friends for drinks and gossip as he grew older. To this day, he is recognized when he walks down its sidewalks. “Hi Cleve — I know who you are,” said Lt. Amy Hurwitz of the San Francisco Police Department, after Jones began to introduce himself.

But he has moved out because of rising rent. The article goes on to list other reasons LGBTQ+ are moving out…

LGBTQ couples, particularly younger ones, are starting families and considering more traditional features — public schools, parks and larger homes — in deciding where they want to live. The draw of “gayborhoods” as a refuge for past generations looking to escape discrimination and harassment is less of an imperative today, reflecting the rising acceptance of gay and lesbian people. And dating apps have, for many, replaced the gay bar as a place that leads to a relationship or a sexual encounter.

Many gay and lesbian leaders said this might well be a long-lasting realignment, an unexpected product of the success of a gay rights movement, including the Supreme Court’s recognition of same-sex marriage in 2015, that has pushed for equal rights and integration into mainstream society.

I think that is true… “Gay” nightclubs are going the way of the dinosaurs. I wasn’t much of a bar person but I did notice that the LGBTQ+ bars and nightclubs has dropped since I first stuck my toe out the door.

I remember the tenth anniversary of marriage equality there were a number of ten year olds running around.

Hess said part of this was generational. The men and women who established these neighborhoods “wanted to segregate and be surrounded by gay people,” he said. “In contrast, when you ask young people today what they want, they would prefer an inclusive coffee shop. They don’t want anyone to feel unwelcome.”

Some gay leaders argued that the instinct to live in communities of like-minded people remained a powerful draw and that there would always be some version of a gayborhood, though perhaps not as concentrated and powerful.

There has been much discussion on whether Connecticut needs a LGBTQ+ senior housing center? First we have a small population, second many people think that it will ghettoize us, while other think that it will nice because we would be among community. And now with the hate crime at the LGBTQ+ apartments in Boston it is giving other a pause think think about how safe a LGBTQ+ apartments would be.

So that leads me to today’s poll.

online polls

When Elvis Presley sang "In the Ghetto" (originally titled "The Vicious Circle") in 1969 I doubt that he realized that it would still be relevant today.