“[…] Karen Cushing, director of business development at SAGECare, the training division of the LGBTQ+ older adult advocacy organization SAGE, said that older LGBTQ+ adults carry decades of trauma. For example, elders still feel the impact of the many deaths in the community during the 1980s AIDS epidemic, Cushing said.
The National Poll on Healthy Aging also reported that 19 percent of LGBTQ+ adults older than 50 cited poor or fair mental health, compared with 11 percent of other seniors.
[…] ‘Our home is our sanctuary. It’s where we’re the safest, where we can be ourselves 100 percent,” Cushing said. “So when we’re thinking of moving into a community, we’re losing that sanctuary. It becomes very much a habit to know who we can invite into our home.'”
Read the full piece here. This piece was originally published by North Carolina Health News on September 11, 2026.
