It’s National Senior Center Month! Here’s What You Should Know About MiGen’s New LGBTQ+ Senior Center Inside Affirmations.

Partnership has expanded opportunities for local LGBTQ+ older adults

Published: September 18, 2024 | Last Updated: September 18, 2024

September is National Senior Center Month, a time to recognize the vital role these centers play in supporting our elders. For LGBTQ+ seniors, this month highlights the unique challenges they face — and the crucial lifeline that organizations like MiGen provide. Offering tailored resources and a safe space, MiGen is dedicated to ensuring that LGBTQ+ elders receive the care, community and support they deserve.

MiGen opened the doors of Michigan’s first LGBTQ+ senior center in January. The new location inside Affirmations in Ferndale is hopefully the first of many to come, MiGen Executive Director Angela Gabridge told Pride Source.

The fight for LGBTQ+ senior support systems is not a new one. Gabridge said LGBTQ+ elders are overlooked in multiple facets of their identity. “It's always been hard work,” Gabridge said. “Much of the support for LGBTQ+ communities is focused on work supporting youth. And the organization does not receive ongoing support through the traditional senior services infrastructure, either.”

“This often meant working to be as impactful as possible with very limited resources,” she added. “Therefore, much of the organization's history focused on working for systemic change via training, guides and advocacy work.”

Systemic change is different from direct resources, Gabridge said. This spurred the collaboration with Affirmations for the Ferndale center. “While we continued this incredibly important work, we also knew the LGBTQ+ older adult communities across Michigan had a deep need for direct services,” she said. “Until establishing the senior center location at Affirmations, these were largely provided virtually, or in partnership with other community-based organizations like the Hannan Center in Detroit."

“It was a great start, but we knew we needed to be more present in, and accessible to, the community,” Gabridge added. “We also wanted to do this in an innovative, sustainable way that did not require another brick-and-mortar location when we already had incredible partners and spaces we could work within via an embedded model like this one.”

Establishing the center was “transformational,” said Gabridge. “Having a physical space for community members to visit, spend time, receive services or just hang out has been a game-changer,” Gabridge explained. “The level of engagement and participation is way up, and we're able to connect with folks and hear their feedback on what's working, or what's not. This is why you will see our program and service offerings constantly evolving — it's a direct response to the needs of the community.”

With Affirmations as a partner, Gabridge said LGBTQ+ older adults have more opportunities available to them throughout the Affirmations space, beyond the officially designated MiGen space on the center’s lower level.

“You'll see this in action when we host events in the Pittman-Puckett Art Gallery, in the Intergenerational Room or on the SkyDeck,” Gabridge said. “We are also able to connect LGBTQ+ older adults and those who care for them with the full breadth of programs and services Affirmations has to offer, and to create collaborative programming that meets the unique needs of LGBTQ+ older adults in that geographic area. In return, Affirmations has an embedded, fully functional and comprehensive senior services organization onsite for the first time ever.”

Gabridge said that providing a space for senior members of the LGBTQ+ community is crucial now more than ever. “Just last week, we heard about an Oakland County Probate Court judge who has been removed from her docket after being recorded making racist comments and also using anti-gay slurs to refer to Oakland County Executive Dave Coulter, a respected member of our community,” Gabridge recounted. “Michigan is also a state that names LGBTQ+ older adults as a priority population in our State Plan on Aging, placing us among the most progressive states in the country when it comes to our official policies on aging.”

Just because policies are supposedly in favor of LGBTQ+ seniors doesn’t mean it always plays out that way in practice, Gabridge said, noting that LGBTQ+ older adults often forgo seeking the services and care they need. “Despite good, progressive statewide laws and policies, our LGBTQ+ older adults know that the sort of hateful behavior demonstrated by that judge is not as rare and obsolete as it should be,” she said. “Our older adults have been navigating this sort of discrimination all of their lives. Sometimes it's unapologetic — gross and loud like that judge. Sometimes it smiles at you quietly while denying you care or community. The mistrust and the trauma rightfully run deep, despite the progress we have seen in recent decades.”

These centers do more than provide resources — they make LGBTQ+ feel seen and safe, Gabridge said. “Just as safe, inclusive spaces for our youth remain critical, so too do they for our LGBTQ+ older adults,” she said. “Their presence also says something beautiful about the locations and geographies within which they reside: We see you, we support you and all are welcome here.”