MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
Finding affordable housing is challenging for nearly any American. It can be harder for senior citizens and even harder for seniors who are part of the LGBTQ community. A new affordable housing project here in Washington is trying to address that. NPR's Kathryn Fink visited Mary's House for Older Adults.
KATHRYN FINK, BYLINE: Washington, D.C., has been home for Wesley Adolphus Pinkney (ph) for 71 years. But when he walked into Mary's House for the first time, he felt a new kind of homecoming.
WESLEY ADOLPHUS PINKNEY: It's like Dorothy in "The Wiz." Click your feet three times and you're home, and that's what I feel. I'm home now.
FINK: Pinkney never imagined he might get to spend his golden years alongside other LGBTQ seniors. At one point in time, he never even imagined getting past his 30s.
PINKNEY: In 1986, the doctor told me I had two years. I was infected with the HIV virus. It's now been almost 40 years - 40 years. So to be in this place, it's going to be heaven.
FINK: He says decades ago, it was difficult to be accepted as a gay man and that he had to, quote, "kick the doors down."
PINKNEY: I love me today. You know, I show up for me today. I am who I am, and there's no turning back.
FINK: There are 15 units at Mary's House for Older Adults, but more than half of the building is communal - a meditation room, a computer lab, a room for arts and crafts. Pinkney is still waiting for his application to be approved, but he's ready to give up a two-bedroom apartment to live in a studio here because these days, community is what he values most.
PINKNEY: I don't want to die in a room all by myself and nobody's there. And I believe this is a place where love is here. I feel it, you know? And I'm not going to die no time soon.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Thanks, Lauren (ph).
IMANI WOODY MACKO: As I'm sitting in this room, it's so freaking surreal. Like, it's a lot of freaking space in here.
FINK: Imani Woody Macko is the president and CEO of Mary's House. She's a senior and identifies as a lesbian. So for her, all of it is surreal, being inside the new senior home and remembering what was here before.
WOODY MACKO: I grew up on this property - 401 Anacostia Road, Southeast. The house had beautiful rose trees and a grape vine, apple tree in the back. We had a creek running through here.
FINK: Woody Macko says her father was the first Black homeowner on their street in Fort Dupont east of the Anacostia River. Later, the entire area became a predominantly Black neighborhood. She names Mary's House after her mother, though she got the idea after her father was mistreated at a nursing home towards the end of his life.
WOODY MACKO: I thought, gosh, and he's a heterosexual Black older guy. What would have happened had he been an out gay male, a lesbian out or an out trans person?
FINK: Woody Macko spent 12 years navigating zoning laws, courting private investors, securing a grant from the D.C. government and tearing down her childhood home to build a new apartment building that could house more people. She said that was painful, but decided it was worth it.
WOODY MACKO: When you talk about LGBTQ+SGL people, you know, you're talking about discrimination. We don't know what's safe, and/or we don't know who's safe. So you pick and choose who to come out to, including your neighbors - right? - including the rental office.
FINK: Thirty-four percent of older LGBTQ adults reported being worried they'd have to hide their identity to access senior housing or care services. That's according to a 2021 report on adults over 50 in Illinois from the nonprofit SAGE, which stands for Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders. Sherrill Wayland is a senior director at SAGE.
SHERRILL WAYLAND: We also know that many older adults are less likely to have children and more likely to be single as they age. And so they may need to turn to places like affordable housing and other senior housing developments where they can receive that care and support that they need.
FINK: Wayland says SAGE is working with roughly 70 affordable housing projects for LGBTQ seniors across the U.S. Twenty-six of them are operational, including Mary's House.
WOODY MACKO: We would love to have a Mary's House in every ward, in every state.
FINK: Imani Woody Macko says she wants to expand beyond independent living to assisted living and hospice so LGBTQ seniors can feel supported at every phase. For now, she's celebrating Mary's House, a slice of her home, now a home for others.
Kathryn Fink, NPR News, Washington. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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