LGBTQ retirement homes and long-term care facilities have been a vision since the mid-1990s. During the last 27 years, independent housing developers as well as cities, non-profit housing developers, and LGBTQ communities themselves have transformed the vision into reality across the United States and beyond. The result has given graying LGBTQ people options for their golden years.

Urban Retirement

Many cities are developing low-income options for mature LGBTQ people, allowing them to remain in the cities they call home. Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco have robust LGBTQ communities, art and culture (theater, museums, opera, and other entertainment), aging and HIV/AIDS services, and more, but they also have high costs of living that make it challenging for queer seniors.

However, LGBTQ senior advocacy organizations are finding ways to keep queer seniors in their cities building housing and providing services.

San Francisco’s Openhouse has opened 119 low-income studio and 2-bedroom apartments at the Laguna buildings and more apartments are coming. Openhouse will soon break ground on phase three of its LGBTQ-welcoming housing developments, Openhouse Executive Director Kathleen Sullivan said.

Last year, SAGE opened an LGBTQ-friendly senior housing building, the Crotona Senior Residences (83 units), in the Bronx. Previously, SAGE opened another LGBTQ-friendly senior housing residence at Stonewall House (145 units) in Brooklyn in 2019.

The story is similar at Chicago’s Town Hall apartments, Philadelphia’s John C. Anderson Apartments, and Los Angeles’s Triangle Square and the city’s LGBT Center’s new affordable housing for LGBTQ seniors which opened last year.

Most of these organizations also offer LGBTQ cultural training programs for housing and long-term care facilities to expand LGBTQ-welcoming living and care opportunities.

The first LGBTQ-affirming senior-living facility in Texas—and one of the largest of its kind in the country—is now open in Houston’s Third Ward.

The Montrose Center’s new Law Harrington Senior Living Center, located at 2222 Cleburne Street, was first announced by Space City’s LGBTQ resource center in 2018. Construction on the building is ongoing through March 11, and at press time, 18 seniors had moved into the center, while 60 of the building’s 112 units have been assigned.

Now that the facility is open, the Montrose Center is taking rental applications from singles and couples ages 62 and older whose annual income is below an amount calculated using current median-income data from the Houston area.

Resort Retirement

Some older LGBTQ adults dream of escaping busy city life. Living in a resort-style retirement community is their dream. Several retirement communities and long-term care facilities provide that sense of a forever vacation.

Tampa Bay’s Palms Of Manasota, possibly America’s first purposely planned LGBTQ retirement community, still exists nearly three decades later. Of the 21 original single-family homes owned by LGBTQ retirees, 15 remain queer-owned, Fred Hodges, a 71-year-old gay man, told Gay City News. Hodges and his late husband bought the house he lives in today in the tight-knit rainbow community in 2002.

The LGBTQ retirees there take care of each other. Senior services are available through the county as well as private elder care services.

Stonewall Gardens, in Palm Springs, California, is an assisted living facility caring specifically for LGBTQ retirees. It has 24 luxury bungalow-style apartments with patios and outdoor spaces and the facility provides 24/7 health and wellness care with nurses on-site and chef-prepared gourmet meals. it is also pet-friendly.

LGBTQ retirees found paradise in California’s wine country at Fountaingrove Lodge. The Rainbow Flag flies proudly above the entrance of the modernized craftsman-style building, which boasts 148 units in a luxury retirement community in Sonoma County. Twenty percent of the units are set aside for affordable housing. The retirement community provides resort-style amenities and allows for independent living and care for every stage of aging.

Located in the “High Country” of the Blue Ridge Mountains on 165-acres in a gated community, Carefree Cove is truly carefree for independently living LGBTQ retirees in North Carolina. LGBTQ retirees live in 29 log cabins on 78 lots with space to welcome new residents. The vacation destination offers a variety of outdoor activities on and off the property as well as local events, restaurants, breweries, and more. No additional services are provided or allowed at the residences.

International Retirement

All of the top 10 best places to retire in 2022, from Europe to Latin America, are in LGBTQ-friendly countries, according to InternationalLiving.com’s annual 2022 Annual Global Retirement Index published last month.

“You couldn’t drag me to go back to the United States now,” said retired dentist David Hudnall, 61, who moved from North Carolina to Mexico’s Lake Chapala in 2019 with his husband, Roy Haynes, a 58-year-old retired visual manager for department store displays.

The couple chose to go abroad due to the United States’ high cost of living and the lack of quality health care. They love Mexico and have found a new life in the expat and local communities and their church.

Chan said Lisbon ticked off all their boxes, from LGBTQ-friendliness to high-quality health care, “in terms of what we’re hoping for in terms of our future.”