The Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley is planning to move out of its headquarters on the fifth floor of the Auditorium Theatre and into a transitional space that will give the organization a higher profile and the momentum to kick off a larger project, says Scott Fearing, the alliance’s executive director.
That project could include providing offices for various LGBTQ organizations, including a new permanent home for the Gay Alliance, he says, as well as a community center.
The group’s current headquarters is cramped, he says, and nearly invisible to the community.
“It’s just not accessible,” Fearing says.
He says his goal is to create a one-stop-shop for the LGBTQ communities. The Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley is an LGBTQ advocacy organization serving Monroe and surrounding counties.
In addition to its administrative offices, the Gay Alliance used to have a community room in the Auditorium Theatre, on the first floor. But the room didn’t get a lot of use, Fearing says, so it closed last fall. He says he’s embarrassed that the Gay Alliance doesn’t have a community center to serve the LGBTQ population.
“We’ve got one of the oldest organizations in the country,” Fearing says. “We have a really long history of doing amazing work in this town, and the community doesn’t have a center to turn to or to find themselves.”
Looking farther down the road, Fearing says he’d love for the Gay Alliance to help bring LGBTQ-specific senior housing to Rochester. Nationwide, housing for LGBTQ seniors is becoming a trend. Minneapolis, Philadelphia, and San Francisco are among the cities with senior LGBTQ housing projects.
Research shows that many LGBTQ individuals go back into the closet when they move into senior housing, Fearing says. It’s not just about discrimination, he says, but also about finding a place where they can be themselves.
“The person may not know if they really can talk honestly about their life,” Fearing says.
This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2014.
The outrageous behavior of Kimberly and Beck in regards to transgender health issues has given some people purportedly representing the LGBT community a sudden, and in all probability, short-lived local prominence.
This article is an attempt to cash in on that fact.
Scott Fearing, head of the GAGV ( Gay Alliance of the Genesee Valley ), states that he is embarrassed by the lack of a gay community center. He also states that one is in the works.
He then provides us with no further details, except to mention that he wants to bring LGBTQ-specific senior housing to Rochester, naming three cities where this specific housing exists, without attempting to explain how they came about there.
Where will these projects be located? Which organizations will be housed at a gay community center? As for gay-specific senior housing, isn’t that discriminatory?
Nor does Mr. Fearing mention costs.
Does the GAGV have the cash to finance such projects? If not, where will they get the cash? Will they require subsidies and grants?
Is Mr. Fearing aware of the fact that Rochester is the fifth poorest city in the United States and is not about to hand out millions of taxpayer dollars to benefit one small segment of Rochester’s population?
Furthermore, how large is Rochester’s gay community? Does Mr. Fearing and the executive board of the GAGV claim to represent all of it?
Those questions weren’t asked. Probably because there are no answers. Why print the article at all, as vague as it is?
Update: It was revealed today that Rochester now ranks as the third poorest city in the United States, with Buffalo in fourth place!
Disgraceful!
I wouldn’t say that a gay community center would be an unwelcome addition to the Rochester city landscape, but I would agree that the questions Istvan mentions should have been raised.
The fact that they weren’t is sadly typical of the sort of lazy news reporting one can expect from this paper. There’s a reason City is known only for its arts coverage.
I am certainly not a lawyer, but I strongly suspect that gay-specific (or even housing marketed as gay friendly) would not be legal. From a landlord course I took from the Rochester housing council, any advertising that suggested that a particular group was either unwelcome or specifically welcomed would not b”e allowed.
Here is a link to a housing council page: http://www.thehousingcouncil.org/landlords/housing-discrimination
Note that on the list of prohibited actions is “Advertising or making any statement that indicates a preference based on race, color, national origin, religion, or other protected class”