Closets Are for Clothes, Not Seniors

On this week’s episode of Queer Money®, we’re kicking off our Gay Retirement 101 series with a hard truth: Too many LGBTQ+ folks are being forced back into the closet as they age — and it’s not because they miss the wardrobe. 🏳️‍🌈

With anti-LGBTQ+ legislation gaining traction across the U.S., many older queer adults are facing discrimination, isolation, and even financial insecurity during a time that’s supposed to be their golden years. From unaffordable retirement housing to long-term care facilities that feel more 1950s than fabulous, the challenges are real — and urgent.

We’re breaking it all down:

• 💰 The money traps queer folks face in retirement
• 🏘️ How housing discrimination adds insult to injury
• 🌈 A shortlist of LGBTQ+-affirming retirement communities we love (yes, they do exist — and yes, some are affordable!)

If you want to retire out loud, not fade back into silence, this episode is for you. Let’s make sure your next chapter is as bold, proud, and you as ever.ill present a selection of our preferred LGBTQ+ retirement communities nationwide, reflecting a spectrum of affordability and acceptance. Join us as we navigate this critical dialogue, equipping ourselves with the knowledge necessary to foster a secure and fulfilling retirement.

Topics Covered:

• 00:23 - Introducing Gay Retirement 101 Series
• 03:28 - Retirement Planning for LGBTQ+ Individuals
• 18:21 - Exploring Affordable LGBTQ+ Living Options Across States
• 20:54 - Exploring LGBTQ Senior Housing Options
• 28:32 - The Cost of Care Services and LGBTQ Communities
• 36:04 - Exploring LGBTQ-Friendly Communities

Gay Retirement Communities:

Today, we’re sharing our favorite LGBTQ+ retirement communities 10 of our favorite places for LGBTQ+ individuals to live in retirement

1. Pueblo Manor in Apache Junction, AZ
2. Triangle Square in Hollywood, CA
3. A Place for Us in Cleveland, OH
4. Rainbow Vista in Gresham, OR
5. Town HallApartments in Chicago, IL
6. Fountaingrove Lodge in Santa Rosa, CA
7. Wilton Manors, FL
8. The Residences atSeashore Point in Provincetown, MA
9. Village Hearth Cohousing in Durham, NC
10. Birds of a Feather in Village of Pecos, NM

Mentioned in this episode:

Your fabulous retirement in Portugal is calling!

Ready to turn your IRA assets into a gateway to living in Europe? With the Optimize Portugal Golden Opportunities fund you can do just that. Join hundreds of other U.S. investors taking control of their retirement and using the assets they have to open doors to freedom. Click below to get your Portugal Golden Visa!

Get Your Portugal Golden Visa Here!

Get Your Portugal Golden Visa Here!

Did you know that queer people are going back into the closet, especially as we age?

It's in part because of the 508 anti LGBTQ laws at the state level throughout the country for the aclu that.

Makes retirement and retirement housing more specifically more unaffordable for us, increasing that pink tax.

That's why you're listening to Queer Money, episode 470 today, because we are kicking off our new Gay Retirement 101 series.

Today, we're sharing our favorite LGBTQ+ retirement communities around the country.

So let's get on with the show.

You're listening to the Queer Money podcast, Personal finance with a rainbow twist.

Queer Money is dedicated to financial independence, financial well being, investing knowledge, and the intersection of all things money as an LGBTQ person.

So one of the pieces of feedback that we've been hearing from people as we're doing this Gay City series, analyzing the most affordable LGBTQ friendly city in each of the 50 states, all 50.

Some people are coming back to us and saying that the places that they want to live or places that are close to their friends and family are still unaffordable, even when we highlight these more affordable LGBTQ friendly cities.

And a lot of people are having this fear and having this discussion with themselves and their partners as they approach retirement.

Where can I go to retire as an LGBTQ+ person?

Where I will be wholly accepted and is also affordable.

I think especially as these anti LGBTQ plus laws are permeating throughout the country.

Those two just don't live together anymore.

Yeah.

And one of the things, interestingly, that we are finding is that the more LGBTQ friendly a place is, the more expensive it is and the more blue it is, and the more unfriendly it is, the more red it is and the cheaper it is.

So it's, it's, it's a difficult thing to be thinking about, especially if you are getting to that point where you're wanting to retire or you're thinking about retiring or you're in retirement and you're saying to yourself, where can I go?

And you're looking at pretty much every single southern state is a red state, from Florida all the way to Arizona with, you know, a minor exception, sometimes.

With pockets of here and there.

Yeah.

And so a lot of folks are saying, where do I go that is affordable?

And we get this question, actually people reach out to us and say even before we started doing the Gay Cities, Affordable Gay Cities series, people who reached out to us and asked us, where can I go that's affordable and LGBTQ friendly when I retire?

That's part of the reason why we're doing this.

We.

You know, there's a.

We did a YouTube video.

I don't know if it was a short or Alive or something.

We titled it something to the effect of there's a retirement crisis for LGBTQ plus people in America.

That was like three or four years ago.

And I rem Somebody chastise us for being overly dramatic.

Imagine that.

The gays being overly dramatic.

And it was another gay, though, so whatever.

But they're being dramatic about you being dramatic, right?

I know.

Tone it down, girl.

As we're looking at going through these cities and as we're looking at what's going on in the landscape of politics in America, and as we compiled this data for this particular episode, I don't think we emphasize enough that there's a retirement crisis for the queer community in America.

I think we need to double down on that.

And that's in part why we're kicking off this Retirement 101 series.

Because of all the challenges that LGBTQ+ people have, I think the most depressing is when we finally reach older age, however you want to define that.

I don't want to offend anybody because suddenly 55 seems quite young and sometimes.

35 seems quite old.

That some people are going back in the closet.

A lot of us are living alone, don't have friends or family for support, don't have children, lost connection with whatever family we did have, or they all died for the one standing.

So it's just very sad that, like, we go through our lives and there's a lot for us to be afraid of and a lot for us to be concerned about.

And that doesn't end when we get to older age.

It almost doesn't end until you die.

And that's what makes it kind of depressing from my perspective.

And why I think that this particular series that we're going to kick off is.

Is so important because I think our community needs more tools at its disposal.

And he's about retirement planning.

But more importantly, I think we need to start talking more about it now.

I was excited to see that LGBTQ plus Nation a couple weeks ago did include a personal finance article in one of its publications, and I think it was written by Nick Wolney, but which is great.

So that we're getting the conversation started.

We need to expedite that, have more of that.

But I also think we need to double down the discussion for retirement planning, there's a lot for us to be concerned about.

Right.

That's not to minimize other things we need to discuss, but I think retirement planning is really scary because none of us want to be that build bag lady living in a box like Rose Nyland was afraid of becoming at one point.

Right.

And I think whether you're 18 or 81, living fabulously doesn't happen by accident.

And all of us want to live fabulously.

And I think that's part of the reason why it's important to not only have the conversation, but share the kind of data that we're going to be talking about today, about what is available right now and what do we see happening in the future.

Yeah, exactly.

So what.

Before we kick off giving the list of our top 10 cities or LGBTQ + communities around the country, I want to re emphasize the need for every LGBTQ person to get Dr.

Sarah Geber's book, Essential Retirement Planning for Solo agers.

We interviewed Dr.

Geber on episode 438 of the podcast, and it's just a very well thought out, comprehensive book on how to design the retirement life of your dreams or one that's within that one that you can afford as you age.

And she discusses different kinds of housing situations or community living, such as co housing communities, home sharing, cultural specialty communities.

And she talks a lot about retirement planning and all the various considerations to have while you're planning retirement.

And that, that I think is the key.

Have the discussion and start planning for what you want.

Otherwise you might not be happy with what you end up getting.

Yeah.

And I, I do remember when we interviewed a Dr.

Zefgeber, one of the points that she made was that solo agers aren't just single people.

No.

That she and her husband consider themselves solo agers because they don't have children, have what appears to be familial support when they get into their 80s and 90s when they're older and need that familial support.

And I think that that's one of the things that we as a community really need to pay attention to is just because we don't have children, but we are married or in a relationship, doesn't mean that we're not solo agers.

It really focuses on this idea of what does your support structure look like as you age?

Yeah.

And I know that a lot of us, especially as we age, we become a little bit cynical and we're like, I can do it alone.

I'm all by myself.

I'm my Own girl.

But, you know, there's doctors.

Dan Buettner, who's part of the Blue Zone studies, he's has several books out about blue zones.

Most recently, I'm reading his current book, the Blue Zones of Happiness, and he talks about how there's a sense of community is critical for all of our happiness, all of our quality of life, even if we consider ourselves introverts, we need to have some sort of sense of community.

So, you know, the fear that we're going back in the closet is one thing, but the fear of maybe cutting yourself off from any and all people, I think some people think that they're gonna be able to sort of just do this on their own and that there are all sorts of studies that come out that show that that increases depression, it increases the chance of getting Parkinson's and Alzheimer's, all sorts of other medical conditions that can come up.

So don't think you can do it alone.

You need a sense of community.

And if you want to have the sense of community and the lifestyle that you want, you need to plan ahead.

So we're going to dive into our top 10 list of LGBTQ + communities around the country that we are attracted to or appealed to ourselves for one reason or another.

And they're all over the country, so they're not just going to be in the blue cities in the blue states.

Yeah.

I think one of the other things to consider when we're talking about this list, we are going to kind of go kind of grouping these into a cheaper side and a more expensive side of these.

But one of the things that you will find, especially if you go out and search for LGBT or gay retirement communities, there aren't a lot of them out there.

So we're highlighting 10 here.

These aren't necessarily our top 10, but they're 10 that we decided to pull out of the list that we have found.

Yeah, I think we wrote an article a couple years ago about all of the communities.

And I'm just going off my memory here, so I could be wrong, but I think it was 22 right at that time.

I don't know if that that number's changed, but when you think about how many, what, 20 million LGBTQ people in.

The U.S.

the estimates range.

Well, currently the CDC says there's roughly around 14 million adults, individuals who are 18 and older.

That doesn't include individuals who are younger than that, but I think that when the number.

When the age drops down to 13, they bump that number up to around 20 million.

Wow.

So that's a lot of us to cram into 22 communities.

Yeah, we'll talk about those numbers later.

Let's.

Let's dive into our first facility here.

This is one that is.

Is definitely on the cheaper side.

And one of the things you're going to find on the ones on the cheaper side is that there's more responsibility on you than there is on the community.

So our first one here is the Pueblo, which is in Arizona.

It is a women's only mobile home and RV park in Apache Junction, Arizona.

Apache Junction is a part of the Phoenix metro area.

Phoenix did get a 100 out of 100 on HRC Municipal Equality Index.

That index, if you're not familiar, basically gives a score to cities based on how welcoming their policies are for LGBT folks and how much the city itself does for the community.

So Phoenix, those are city policies, not necessarily state policies.

Exactly.

And I don't know, look, is Arizona one of the flag states?

It's not.

It's not.

What we're talking about is HRC did recently put a number of states under what they call state of emergency because the states are enacting laws at the state level that may supersede the laws at the city level.

This is specifically happening in red states.

Tennessee is one of them.

I think all of us know about how tough Tennessee is right now for LGBT folks.

But what we're highlighting here is a location that is focused on women only.

It is an RV and mobile home park, which means you either bring your own rv, your own mobile home, or you rent one that's already there.

It is a private community that is located in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, but it is specifically for 55 and older individuals.

It is a supportive community and a beautiful scenery.

But when it comes to the costs, it is relatively low.

You can rent a lot on the site there for anywhere from about 635 to $775.

That's what we could find right now.

A month.

Right.

That's per month.

But remember, that's only renting the lot.

There are still other fees and things that are associated with this, like maintaining your own RV or mobile home, the maintenance of that, the purchase of that, the mortgage of that, if you're purchasing one and need to borrow money for that.

One of the nice things is Arizona does come up above average when it comes to the LGBTQ population for the state, which is around 5.9%.

That roughly around 317,000 LGBT folks living in the state of Arizona.

And we know that a lot of them are in the Tucson Phoenix metro area.

Exactly.

Number two is Triangle Square in California.

This is being designed and managed by gay and lesbian Elders Housings.

It's a mission to improve the life experience of LGBTQ seniors, especially those who have HIV and aids.

And they're developing affordable housing and providing comprehensive care and ensuring a brighter future for LGBTQ people as we age.

This is the Triangle Square is the first development of goes by GLH and this is in the Hollywood area.

It's a $21.5 million facility with 104 apartments currently not available.

But in the building they provide social services, classes, cultural events, whatnot.

So it's, it's a, it's a great little community.

On the cheaper side, even though, especially when you think that you're in Hollywood, which isn't very terribly cheap itself, so that is quite affordable if that's the area of the country that you want to live in.

There are some income restrictions, however, on some of the apartments.

So not everybody can, can necessarily qualify depending upon what your income is.

Hollywood doesn't have an HRC rating, but West Hollywood, which is just west of Hollywood, did score a 100 out of 100 on HRC's Municipal Equality Index.

Yeah, and it's a gay mecca in this, a bit in city of Los Angeles in the state of, of California.

One of the things you will note on these types of communities, the cheaper they are, the more affordable they are.

Typically that is because they are being subsidized in some way.

And because of that, these are places where they will have some income restrictions.

So don't think that these are all just cheap, cheap places that all of us can, can go to and live there.

The other thing you want to think about is the size of these places, right?

This facility only has 104 apartments and that's not a lot for this.

Not even for the city of West Hollywood, let alone the United States.

Yeah, exactly.

And I think we're looking at, we didn't write down the square footage here in our notes, but I think you're not even pushing a thousand square feet in either of these apartments, right?

No, definitely.

These are definitely designed to be low cost small units so that they could get as many into the building with the funds that they had.

So it really is, this is a, when you want to think about it, this is a Social service driven facility.

All right, let's go to another cheap place.

Cheaper.

That cheaper place and this one is in Ohio, a red state.

This is called a place for us.

It is an LGBTQ friendly senior housing community that is located on the border between Cleveland and Lakewood.

Lakewood is a suburb of Cleveland that is just to the west of downtown Cleveland.

It does offer one and two bedroom apartments for those who are 55 and over.

The nice thing is, especially for those who don't want to have to buy a car or own a car during retirement.

It is near the West 117th RTA Rapids station, which is for their mass transit, but it also has things like shopping and parks, among other amenities.

Right there in that area.

The facility itself has a fitness room, library, a meditation room, laundry facilities, as well as health and wellness suite, which is great especially for folks who are in retirement because we know that is an expense as well as other nice things about the facility.

As we've mentioned, this is one of the more affordable ones on our list.

One of the things that we did find though is that these facilities are really small.

Yeah, I think these are like around 500 at most.

Right, right.

One bedroom, one bathroom is going for $791 a month.

And this is rent.

You don't own these 791 DOL bedroom, one bathroom goes for $874 a month.

The nice thing is, is that Cleveland did rank number one on our gay cities list for the most affordable place to live in Ohio.

And it did get a 100 on the HRC's Municipal Equality Index.

Cleveland has a strong LGBT community.

When you're looking at the rest of the area, this can kind of tell you how cheap this place really is.

Home values in the area go for around $202,000.

And rents for a two bedroom, two bathroom usually come in around $1,321, which means these places are considerably cheaper than the rest of the homes in the area.

But the cost of living in Cleveland itself is one of the lowest that we've seen on all of the cities that we looked at in our our Affordable Gay City series, coming in at 77.2% of the national average.

And there was just a study that came out today that showed that Toledo, where we currently are, is the number four cheapest place in the country.

And Akron was the number 5th cheapest place in the country to live.

And there was.

What was.

There was an article a couple weeks ago that talked about how Toledo is an epicenter of real Estate appreciation.

There's a lot of hunger to move here and to invest here.

And so we don't want to raise the property values here and raise our property taxes, but we would love to see more LGBTQ+ people here.

So, you know, there's that give and take.

Yeah.

Just for perspective, folks, Toledo is on the far west side of the state, whereas Cleveland is much more closer to the east side of the state.

Akron is actually almost.

It's almost like Akron and Cleveland have grown together.

They're pretty close.

I think that the time to get between the two and by car is about 20 minutes.

So Akron is another area that is very cheap in the state of Ohio.

The nice thing is Ohio ranks as one of the highest states when it comes to LGBTQ percentage of population, coming in at 6.2% of the total population, which means Ohio has over 550,000 LGBTQ folks living in the state.

So that's a place for us in Ohio.

Isn't there a song?

There's a place for us.

We don't need singing on this.

Okay.

Coming in at number four on our list on the cheaper side of things is Rainbow Vista in Oregon.

It's an LGBTQ plus senior community.

For those 55 and older, which seems weird now that we're pushing 55, that doesn't seem.

They offer studio and one bedroom apartments in the Grisham, Oregon area.

It's 50 miles from downtown Portland, so you're very close to Portlandia.

They have large event space for you to host events with friends and family.

A community room theater with a large screen TV and surround sound, exercise room, game room, pool tables, music, what have you.

All sorts of fun and activities can happen there.

They do host barbecues on the deck.

They have movie night on the property in that theater.

They throw birthday parties and holiday gatherings and whatnot.

So it's very community oriented space for folks in the near Portland area.

It's not, however, equipped for assisted living.

So something to keep in mind as you're looking at some or any of these places is if assisted living is something that you need now or that you think you're going to need in the future, you want to have that discussion before you move in and make that sort of a commitment.

The cost range for studios at 370 square foot, it's currently a $695 a month for one person and $995 a month for two people in that studio.

Two people living in 370 square feet.

Yeah.

That's like, I don't Know how long that relationship?

Definitely tiny housing.

Yes, it is tiny housing.

One bedroom with just over 500 square feet for the apartment.

It goes for $945 a month for one person and $1,245 a month for two people.

So definitely more on the affordable side.

But you might be cramped.

I think we know some people who have walk in closets that are that big and that says something about them too.

Our Queer Money Gay City series ranked Portland at number two.

Rents come in at $1,866 a month for a two bedroom, two bathroom apartment, which is just below the national average.

The cost of living, though is the highest in the state for Oregon at 154.6% of the national average.

So while housing might be a little bit more affordable and housing is typically one of the most expensive line items on most people's budgets, the cost of living, if you're looking to really enjoy the surroundings of Portland, might be a little bit more exp.

Home values are towards the bottom for the state relative to what you might be looking for at $525,000 for the average property.

HRC did give it Portland a 100 on its municipal equality index.

All right, we're going to stick with the Midwest here and we're going to.

Go to stick with the Midwest.

We just came from Oregon.

That's true.

But I was talking about.

I'm sorry, I was talking about Ohio.

David talks about.

We're going to talk about Chicago.

There's in Chicago there is a facility called Town Hall Apartments that is the first l LGBTQ friendly housing complex that was built in Chicago.

We don't know if there's a second yet, but this facility was built with $23.7 million of funding.

It is specifically designed for individuals who are 55 and older.

It has 79 units that are a mix of affordable one bedroom and studio apartments.

And the nice thing is is this is right in the gay district.

This is in Boys Town.

Right.

So if you want to be in that and kinds of facilities and services, this is a great spot.

Town Hall Apartments is a joint venture project between Heartland alliance and the anti poverty group that developed and manages the property and the center of Halstead, which is Chicago's LGBT resource and cultural center.

So this is one that was really specifically built by the community there.

So it really kind of is for people who are living in Chicago.

It's not necessarily for folks across the country to come to.

This is folks who are in Chicago.

It's designed that way for the aging community there.

And you'll find that again on some of these more affordable ones.

This is the kind of services that are being provided by the community for the community.

The nice thing is Chicago is a great city.

It did come in number three on our gay cities list when it came to affordable and friendliness for the state of Illinois.

It was behind Champaign and Rockford, which were number two and number one, respectively.

The other nice thing here is that that Chicago and Illinois in general, especially the closer you get to Chicago, are somewhat of a LGBTQ mecca for folks in the.

In the Midwest.

But Illinois's overall LGBTQ population comes in at four and a half percent, which means there are roughly around 447,000 LGBTQ folks living there in that area, with the vast majority of them really close to Chicago.

Yeah.

And that's according to the CDC and the Williams Institute, a recent report that came out by them that.

And is that for 18 and over or.

It is for 18 and over.

Okay, so we're going to migrate now to the more expensive locations.

If some of those square footages kind of scared you, we're going to go to some places that are a little bit, maybe bigger, but they come with a bigger price tag.

And I think some of these are quite surprising.

I think they're going to be quite startling for folks.

And I think this herein lies the reason why we need to have this discussion and why herein lies the reason why we're starting this series.

Because if some of that seemed a little bit too cramped for you, it seemed like it's not going to suit your lifestyle or your expectations or your standard of living that you have today, then that underscores the need to have the retirement discussion.

With only 22 potential, give or take, one or two facilities here and there, for the LGBTQ community to migrate to retire and get some sort of support and community assisted living as we age, that just, you know, there's a lot of people for little space and that just, you know, supply and demand means that's just going to be expensive.

Exactly.

Yeah.

We all know the.

The idea of supply and demand.

Right.

We experienced it, and we are still experiencing some of it in relation to inflation in the United States.

A lot of the reason why things got exp was in part because people weren't working during the pandemic.

They weren't creating the products.

And because the products weren't being created, there was a short supply.

And that meant that they could charge more for the things that we actually truly needed.

And that is probably what is happening or going to happen here.

Even if the number of facilities were to grow tenfold, we're still only talking about adding several thousand more rooms, right?

We're not talking about adding hundreds of thousands or even millions of more rooms that LGBT folks would want to be in when they want to be in their community.

Granted, not everybody is going to say, I'm going to sell my house or ditch with the apartment that I'm in when I get to 55 or 60 or 65.

But we do know that a percentage of us will, and there's just not a whole lot of space for them.

And that means that these facilities, most of them, especially the ones that are for profit facilities, unlike maybe the one in Chicago and the one in Ohio, a lot of these are for profit facilities.

And that means in order to cover their costs, they will have to raise prices.

And if there's a high demand, they can raise prices.

Right?

So that's one of the things that we need to think about, is the cost of retirement is going to get more and more expensive the older we get.

And that's why we need a retirement plan.

We need retirement investing strategy.

We need to create cash flow that generates cash flow while we sleep.

And we'll be talking more about this in the coming months.

So the first in our more expensive side of this equation is Fountain Grove Lodge in California.

This is in the Santa Rosa area.

And Santa Rosa scored an 87 out of 100 on the human Rights Campaign Municipal Equality Index.

This is ideal for residents who see a combination of independent and fun.

Hey, girl, that's me.

It's the first.

I don't know about you being so independent.

That depends on the day.

This is the first LGBTQ senior community in the nation to offer five star living with personalized care as needed.

So that just their lives, it's expensive.

So what's five star living?

That includes gourmet dining and concierge service with spa treatments and housekeeping.

They have.

Have chocolate and wine parties.

I mean, I don't know if I have to read any more about this as well as Pride events.

So that's.

That's five star living.

And I think this is the retirement like what I just described there is, I think what a lot of us would like our retirement to look like, right?

And I think a lot of us maybe falsely Expect that's what our retirement is going to look like.

But as David said earlier, that's just not going to happen by accident.

Right.

If that's the retirement you want to have, you're going to have to work for it.

Regardless of how much your income is.

You need to sort of work to make sure that happens, because as you'll see, this is expensive.

They also offer Alzheimer's and dementia care services at Fountain Grove, if that's something that you need now or you're prone to needing in the future.

That's one of the things you'll notice when we.

When we talk about the more expensive facilities.

There are a lot more services and more services designed to, I don't want to say keep you there, but to provide the services that you'll need as you continue to age.

Because we know that typically the last two to three years of someone's life is when they really need that high touch, that those kinds of services, it's really assisted and maybe sometimes even more than assisted.

It's full care services that some of these facilities can provide.

But get ready to swallow hard because the costs are way up there.

Way up there.

So one bedroom at Fountain Grove is currently going for between $3,400 and $4,000 a month.

A two bedroom is currently going for 3, 700 to $6,500 a month.

And that doesn't include additional costs if additional services are required.

So that is expensive.

I mean, I think nursing home costs on the cheaper end are $8,000 a month with additional services being paid for accordingly.

So, you know, if that's the kind of life you want to have in retirement, and I think we kind of all probably do start budgeting accordingly, California's LBT population is probably not going to surprise anybody.

Per the CDC as well as the Williams Institute of UCLA is about 5.1% of the California population, which is 1.5 million LGBTQ + people.

What's interesting about that is I think that when you rank them 1 to 50, percentage wise, California comes up at number 38.

Wow.

For percentage of population that identify as LGBTQ, which really is, I think, to me, is really surprising.

Yeah, there's a one and a half million LGBTQ people living in the state, but that there are states like Ohio and plenty of other states that are blowing them away when it comes to the overall percentage of individuals.

But does California have the Highest number of LGBTQ + people as a state?

It does, but that's in part, I think, because it is the most populous state in the country.

Yeah, that'll do it.

And you'll probably see here we're moving into, for some of these facilities, we're moving into more desirable places to live in retirement.

Especially if you're thinking about, want somewhere that's a little more sunny, sunnier and warmer and has a little bit more outdoor life, those kinds of things.

That's what you're going to find with these facilities.

And that's part what makes them a little bit more expensive.

Yeah.

All right.

Number seven isn't necessarily a facility.

Number seven is a whole city.

The city of Wilton Manors, Florida.

And it has has continued to maintain that label because a lot of queer people seem to, when they migrate to Florida, end up going to Wilton Manors.

If you're not familiar, Wilton Manors is just north of Fort Lauderdale.

It is just a very gay city.

There's been a strong gay presence there for a long, long time.

As a matter of fact, in the late 80s, they had a city commissioner who came out.

The city has also had a mayor that is identifies as LGBTQ.

And since then, they've had a number of other individuals, vice mayor and councilman who are council people who are identify as LGBTQ.

That's how gay it gets.

And it's the only other place besides Palm Springs to actually have a city that where everyone in the city, in the city commission identifies as somebody in the LGBT community.

The thing with, with Wilton Manors, because it is a who city, it is not specific facilities that we're talking about here.

Wilton Manors is a place where you go and you purchase a home for a lot of people.

You're going and you're purchasing a home.

Although it does have a lot of assisted living facilities in Wilton Manors, almost 150 of those.

We don't know specifically how many of those designate themselves as LGBTQ specific or welcoming.

And because of that, kind of didn't really focus on any facilities right there.

The nice thing is that HRC did give Wilton Manors a 100 out of 100.

It's kind of hard not to when you have a bunch of LGBT folks running the city.

Right.

But that said, Florida is under a state of emergency, according to the HRC, because of Ron DeSantis.

Yeah, exactly.

Just for some perspective, home values in the area come in around $590,000 rent for a two bedroom, two bathroom right now is running around $2,100 a month.

And the cost of living is around 110% of the national average.

So it's slightly elevated when it comes to the cost of living.

And that probably means there aren't a lot of cheap places to live.

It is a little bit more expensive to live there.

Yeah.

So Wilton Manors came in at number two on our gay cities most affordable LGBTQ plus friendlies list.

Number one was a tie because between Tampa and St.

Pete, which is kind of right next to each other, right?

Yeah, those two are next to each other.

They're on the, the Gulf side of the state.

Walton Manners is on the other side.

Yes.

Coming in at number eight, we're finding ourselves in Massachusetts at the residence at Seashore point.

It's a 55 plus community.

It's comprised mainly of singles and married couples, gay and straight, working and retired, all sorts of people.

But it's very welcoming and inclusive.

It's two blocks from the commercial street with, and it's just a quick drive from the beach.

So that's all I really need is the beach right now.

According to our research, specific units, the cheapest are ranging starting at $395,000 for a one bedroom, one bathroom, 630 square foot apartment.

That's pretty small, but it's also a facility where you're purchasing them, right?

Yeah, exactly.

And on the larger side, you're looking at 500 to $600,000.

So you pushing the half a million mark and then that doesn't include HOA fees, which can range between $741 to $1,389 a month.

All that said, it offers maintenance, free living to better enjoy the Provincetown, restaurants, arts, cultural centers, events, facilities, festivities and all that combined.

So we all love Teatown.

It's a, it's a vacation spot for many of us.

But you're gonna have to pay for it.

Yep, it's, it's expensive.

The area itself, P Town did get a 100 out of 100 on HRC's Municipal Equality Index, but it's also an area that is basically considered pretty expensive.

Housing there is higher than Boston and rents are about the same.

Housing costs if you're purchasing a home is higher than Boston, Rents are about the same as Boston and the same thing with the cost of living.

So it's.

This is probably a place people who in the Northeast may want to think about when they're thinking about retirement planning or at least using this As a touch point, the nice thing is Massachusetts is the gayest state in the country.

Yeah.

When we were doing the Gay City series, when that came up, I was like, I was surprised to find that out.

Yeah.

It's the only state in the US where every single county has an LGBTQ plus population higher than the national average, which we said in the Massachusetts episode, which is just crazy.

But I guess when you think about how open and accepting and inclusive it's been, I mean, it was the first state to legalize same sex marriage.

Right, Right.

So, I mean, you know, that just kind of portends what, how inclusive and accepting it is at the community.

And maybe just naturally people gravitate there, but you just don't hear when you're talking about, like the hot spots for LGBTQ plus people to live.

It's always like Chicago, New York, California, specifically San Francisco, maybe Portland and.

Or Washington and Washington, D.C.

of course.

But Massachusetts doesn't come up a whole lot, which is very weird.

However, that said, 6.

6.5% of the Massachusetts community is LGBTQ +.

That's pretty crazy.

Yeah.

That's 356,000 LGBTQ + people.

Yep.

And we know a lot of them are living in the Boston area, but actually, as you pointed out, it is spread across the whole state, and it wasn't Boston.

That was our most affordable LGBTQ plus friendly city.

That was.

No, I don't remember off the top of my head.

Worcester.

Worcester.

Yes.

Right, yeah.

All right, now we're going to move to a state that again, is one that a lot of people don't necessarily associate with being an LGBTQ friendly state.

But this is the state of North Carolina.

It's a state that is getting a massive influx of people right now.

And when people move, LGBT people go with them.

Right, so we're looking LGBTQ plus people are people too.

People are people.

All right.

All right.

So this is the Village Perth Cohousing.

This is a different type of facility and for that reason, there's some additional expenses associated with this.

This is really a place where the community designs and decides what the community looks like.

It's not pre planned by some organization or some corporation, but this is.

This has been designed by the people who live there.

It's a 15 acre woodland area just about 20 minutes from downtown Durham.

It is the first 55 and over cohort housing community in the United States that is specifically for LGBTQ people and their friends and allies.

Sorry, 55, did I say 50?

No, you said 55, but I'm saying it was created by and for LGBTQ + people, which is one of the types of housing that Dr.

Sarah's f ker talks about in her book.

Yeah, and as I mentioned, co housing is a community that's designed and actively organized by the people who live there.

It is, of course, near some nice facilities and things, attractions, things like higher education, arts and sports complexes, medical, medicine and other natural attractions.

But the cost here associated with these, these are purchasing what are considered to many people, little, little tiny houses.

Little cottages.

Yeah, they look like little cottages.

Actually.

Look this place up online because actually, to me, this is a very appealing community.

So a one bedroom, one bathroom home there goes for around $369,000.

A two bedroom, one bathroom home goes for around $430,000 and a two bedroom, two for around $485,000.

That's to purchase it.

There are also likely HOA fees, ongoing fees to help maintain the community.

Durham itself did get a 91 out of 100 for on the HRC's Municipal Quality Index.

And it came in at the number four spot for affordable and LGBTQ friendly.

When we did our list.

Exactly.

North Carolina's adult LGBTQ plus population is 4.4% of the overall population coming in at 353,000 LGBTQ plus people.

And you know what?

That is towards the bottom of the list.

I think that at the bottom of the list, I think, was West Virginia and Mississippi coming in at 4.1.

But I'm wondering if, because of the influx of people moving there, especially because of the technology and finance jobs that are being created there, if we're going to see that percentage go up.

Yeah, exactly.

So if it walks like, like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck.

It must be a duck.

It must be a duck.

Coming in, number 10 is birds of a Feather.

That's in New Mexico.

It's an LGBTQ+ friendly community located in sunny northern Mexico, the land of Enchantment.

And looking at some of the pictures of this place, this is another area that David and I would highly consider.

It offers a lot of hiking on its 140 acre property.

They do games, golfing, all sorts of community activities.

And the area is known to get 300 or more days of, of full sunshine a year, which is pretty crazy and pretty awesome.

It's just outside the village of Pecos.

It's 30 minutes east of Santa Fe, which is in the foothills of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains.

Santa Fe, for those of you who've been there, is gorgeous.

And amazing.

A lot of great things to do there.

It's got the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum.

10,000 Waves is also there, which is a Japanese inspired hot springs and spa that David has been to once but never has taken me.

It's beautiful and amazing.

Yes, I did go there long, long ago.

Yeah, exactly.

Area.

This is another one of those areas where you're actually buying the land and then you can build a house on top of that.

So just to buy the land, the prices range from $89,000 for a plot to $250,000 a plot.

And there are occasionally houses that are available for that are already pre existing.

And on the plot to purchase right now there's one that's available.

It's a two bedroom, two bathroom house going for $700,000 and it looked very cute looking space.

One of the things that's interesting here is in this community, you go in and you purchase a plot of land.

There are some lots that do not have a sewage system which you do have to install, but the rest of them have all the utilities that you need.

And then you work with one of their approved.

I think they said they have seven builders to build a home that is based on the blueprints that are approved for that community.

So they want the community to have a specific look and feel.

And I did notice that they, they now have a.

It's not a tiny house, I think it's 990 square feet, but it's a, it's a what they call a casita.

It's a much smaller home that is on the cheaper side.

But they don't list prices for those because you have to work with the developer, you have to work with the builder for all of the things that you want to have in the house.

So the, the price of the cost of that can range wildly depending on maybe the finishes or the plot that you pick.

Exactly.

We don't have an HRC MEI rating for this particular area and so therefore we don't have a gay cities ranking for this particular area.

New Mexico though, is becoming a hotspot for the LGBTQ community and Albuquerque is a hotspot for same sex couples and was number one on the Queer Money Gay Cities series.

So some things to take into account, New Mexico might be a great place to retire.

New Mexico's LGBTQ plus population is 5.5% of the New Mexico population, which is about 88,000 people.

I feel like we can get some more people, people there and raise the cost of living.

Yeah, I know that Albuquerque is becoming a hotspot for same sex couples, senior same sex couples and as well as I thought this was kind of interesting.

Families, same sex couples who have children are moving to Albuquerque because of the cost of living and the schools are there.

Yeah.

And they have a cute name for Albuquerque.

Albuquerque.

I think they call it Quirky.

Maybe I'm saying that wrong.

Anyway, so as you might have guessed, it's expensive to be gay in America and expensive to be old in America.

And we don't have the data quit yet, but there's an article that recently came out that said it's expensive to die in America.

It can cost up to $10,000 just to die.

So take all this into account as we're going through the Retirement Gay Retirement 101 Series and start planning and strategizing your retirement.

Starting with investing.

Starting with figuring out how to create some cash flow.

That's why we're doing this particular series.

So stay tuned and as always, please DM us or comment with any questions or email us with any questions that you might have so we can help custom this particular series to specifically what you need.

So stay tuned for your crew Money Takeaway from this episode thank you for joining us for another episode.

Get your Queer Money takeaway from this episode in this week's Queer Money newsletter and your takeaway for reaching financial independence faster.

Also, join us on Thursday when we share the most affordable, LGBTQ friendly city to live in in Connecticut and next Tuesday when we have a regular show.

Thanks and have a great weekend.