Housing Plan for LGBTQ+ Communities

Contrary to the common narrative about LGBTQ+ communities as wealthy gentrifiers and harbingers of appreciating property values (which, depending on one’s perspective, may be described as a real estate success story, or portrayed critically as the source of worsening income inequality in New York City), the reality is vastly more complex. The gentrification that occurred in many of the best-known LGBTQ+ neighborhoods in the 1980s and 1990s was driven in part by LGBTQ+ people dying of AIDS. Gay men and members of what we now think of as the transgender, gender non-conforming, and nonbinary community who died were unable to transfer rent-stabilized apartments to their partners, who were displaced as a result, allowing those apartments to be converted to market rate.

Alongside the story of LGBTQ+ New Yorkers and gentrification in core Manhattan, another housing phenomenon – one that is not a well-known part of mainstream New York City history – was occurring: low-income and working-class LGBTQ+ people were creating a form of safety in neighborhoods with more affordable housing stock.

In spite of the important efforts of both the City and its community partners, as the data shows, LGBTQ+ communities face housing instability resulting from a wide range of forces. For LGBTQ+ New Yorkers, increased vulnerability to homelessness is coupled with the fear of experiencing violence in homeless shelters.

Place matters, especially for vulnerable communities. Communities build safety in numbers. Community centers and other social resources – for public health, legal services, community organizing, and yes, even bars and clubs – grow around a community.

In this new publication, CHPC explores how a housing plan for LGBTQ+ communities could help better meet the needs of LGBTQ+ New Yorkers.