Caregiving in the lgbt community

When older people in the general population need help with everyday tasks, they most often turn to family. Eighty-five percent of caregivers are family members -- spouses, sons and

frequently daughters. “For us, those people don’t exist,” says Alex Kent, a caregiving consultant at SAGE, an organization dedicated to improving the lives of LGBT older adults. “I'm

been asked by several clients for my number to list me as an emergency contact,” says Kent. “For us, those people don't always exist. They don’t have anyone else.” Nine percent of

adults identify themselves as LGBT, according to Caregiving in the U.S., a report jointly released by AARP and the National Alliance for Caregiving. They typically rely for support on their

families of choice – a close-knit group of friends, often including an ex-partner. But chosen families frequently involve peers, who are also aging and might need care themselves. “When you

get to the age when you need someone, there aren’t so many someones around,” says Imani Woody, president and CEO of Mary’s House for Older Adults, in Washington, D.C. LGBT elders are twice

as likely to be single and aging alone as the general population, according to SAGE. In addition to alienation from family, they are also three-to-four times less likely to have children. 

LGBT elders are also frequently financially unprepared for advanced age, thanks in part to a history of discrimination-driven lower salaries, according to SAGE. Long denied the right to

marry, they have not been able to take advantage of the tax, insurance, and pension benefits that heterosexual couples can. Eric McNatt Mermin “toughed it out” as a full-time caregiver as

long as she could. Unsure where to turn for help, she found herself isolated and overwhelmed. “We’re from a generation that was not perfectly comfortable being gay,” says Mermin. “We were

closeted and afraid.”