HHS To Fund Homosexual Centers

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HHS To Fund Homosexual Centers

Special Report - October 28, 2009
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced last week its plans to create the nation’s first ever federally funded national resource center for aging homosexual, bisexual and transgendered individuals. According to the October 21 announcement from HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, the new “National Center for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Elders” will do a number of things, including providing “information, assistance and resources for both LGBT organizations and mainstream aging services providers at the state and community level,” and educating “the LGBT community about the importance of planning ahead for future long term care needs.” HHS estimates that somewhere between 1.5 and 4 million LGBT Americans are age 60 or older.

HHS also announced that the Administration on Aging will award a Resource Center grant of about $250,000 to a national LGBT organization each year, “depending on availability of funds.” According to the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the nation’s leading homosexual advocacy group, “the Administration on Aging issued the first-ever grant focused on LGBT aging to the Los Angeles LGBT Community Service Center” in early October.

HRC president, Joe Solomnese, applauded the new resource center for LGBT individuals in a press release. “As more and more openly LGBT people reach their later years, it is incredibly important to ensure that we are treated with dignity, respect and fairness,” he said. HRC is one of more than 20 national homosexual advocacy groups involved in the New Beginnings Initiative, a task force coordinated by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force created “to promote change within federal agencies to improve the lives of LGBT people.”