Serving LGBTQ People

With an administration hostile to LGBTQ people currently occupying the White House, it’s imperative that the community looks after its own. Many organizations around the country are doing just that.

In cities such as New York and San Francisco Queer people who live with HIV or other disabilities as well as low-income seniors can turn to organizations such as Project Open Hand, The Q Foundation and God’s Love We Deliver for help in paying the rent, in finding a place to live, or with keeping food on the table.

Based in New York City, God’s Love We Deliver has delivered healthy hot meals to the homes of people living with chronic HIV related health issues for the last three decades. God’s Love also serves LGBTQ people with other severe illnesses. For many of their clients who are physically or financially unable to shop for food on their own, the help offered by God’s Love We Deliver literally saves lives.

The late comedian Joan Rivers was a longtime supporter of God’s Love We Deliver.

“She served on our Board for 29 years, and delivered meals for 25 years,” God’s Love CEO Karen Pearl recalled when I spoke to her at the time of Rivers’ passing in 2014. “She came to a lot of our special events, visited clients, worked in our kitchen, and went on deliveries.”

Pearl added that every Thanksgiving, Rivers could be counted upon to deliver meals to homebound people with AIDS. “She made it a family affair,” Pearl said. “Cooper, her grandson, accompanied her, and sometimes her daughter Melissa did as well.”

At their website God’s Love offers advice on how clients can keep themselves safe and healthy during New York’s often intense summer heat waves. There’s also a neighborhood nutrition program in which healthy residents can sponsor a zip code for a day, a week, a month or a year. For each $10 donated to the zip code of choice, a meal can be delivered to a person in need within that zip code.

San Francisco’s Project Open Hand has a mission that is similar to that of God’s Love We Deliver.

Every day Open Hand volunteers work in the organization’s kitchen, preparing thousands of meals for delivery. Dozens more volunteers show up to deliver the meals. Project Open Hand also has a food bank where clients who are well enough to venture outdoors can pick fruits, veggies, breads, and other types of food, which they can prepare for themselves at home.

Most impressively, Project Open Hand has a six-week meal delivery program for those who are temporarily disabled due to accidental injury or surgery. One gay man who has since returned to his job told me that receiving those meals were a lifesaver for him when he was recovering from leg surgery. Unable to walk for several weeks, he credits Project Open Hand with keeping him well fed during his recovery period.

One of the most inspirational organizations in San Francisco is The Q Foundation. Formerly known as AIDS Housing Alliance, The Q Foundation offers rental subsidies to low income LGBTQ people with AIDS and other disabilities, as well as to low-income LGBTQ seniors. Around 2,000 people in San Francisco are not homeless because of the help they got from Q Foundation.

One person who can attest to the power of Q Foundation’s help is Patricia Hayashi, a 60-year-old bisexual woman.

Hayashi lost her apartment of 35 years soon after she was diagnosed with cancer—her landlord wanted her out of the rent controlled unit so he could sell it as a condo at a huge profit. For 13 months Hayashi lived on the streets. Her doctor would not allow her to begin her chemo treatments until she had a home to go to.

“I don’t want to die on the streets,” she said.

In July Q Foundation found Hayashi an apartment—the organization now pays most of her $1113 rent. Hayashi was thrilled to move into her one-bedroom unit. Not only can she begin her life-extending chemotherapy, she is also now able to reinstate the services she lost after her eviction: meals on wheels and physical therapy.

“I feel so peaceful, so human, so complete,” Hayashi told OUT FRONT after moving into her apartment. “My puppy kept dragging his bed and bowl by the front door of the apartment thinking we are not staying. We both got the best sleep ever because we are safe, warm, and not outside sleeping with one eye open.”

She expressed her gratitude to the Q Foundation for helping her find the unit and for assisting her in filling out the application.

“Without Q’s guidance, I wouldn’t know how to go online and apply for a below-market unit,” she said. “You need guidance to do this.”

Brian Basinger, Executive Director of Q Foundation, told Outfront that he was just doing his job. “Every time the work my co-workers and I do leads to safe, decent, and affordable housing for our members it inspires me to continue the work – I want to work harder, longer, and smarter because the model we’ve created works,” he said.

You can’t argue with success.