Primary Education Topic:
LGBTQ Aging
Other Education Topics:
Aging in Community
A developer’s perspective on what made this partnership and development successful. It can be boiled down to these two tenets: find the right partner and have realistic expectations.
By Nadia Underhill
In 2007, Heartland Alliance, the Midwest’s leading anti-poverty organization, identified the lack of affordable housing as a critical issue for low-income LGBT older adults in Chicago. In 2011, Heartland Housing (the Alliance’s affordable housing development arm) partnered with Center on Halsted (Chicago’s community center for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons [LGBT]) and won approval to develop a city-owned site into one of the country’s first “LGBT-friendly” senior affordable housing buildings.