A Place to Live

Seven senior citizens put a human face on the effort to build  the nation's first affordable housing community designed specifically for the LGBT community. Carolyn Coal, assistant professor of communications, uses their experiences as a lens with which to examine the struggle of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual senior citizens to find affordable housing in Los Angeles. Coal directed the documentary, “A Place to Live: The Story of Triangle Square,” because she couldn’t walk away from a good story.

“My production partner saw a building being built in Hollywood and we wondered what it was,” she said. “When she inquired, she discovered that they were building an independent living/affordable housing facility for LGBT seniors — the nation’s first affordable housing community designed specifically for the senior LGBT community.”

For 14 months, Coal and her production crew followed the seven senior citizens as they learned whether or not they would be chosen to move into the new facility.

“The plight of LGBT seniors is often a sad one,” explained Coal, who directed the film. “Some no longer have partners and only a few have children to help them. In some instances, they are estranged from their families because of their sexual orientation. Many have no safety net or support systems.

“They also encounter discrimination in other retirement communities and so they continue to feel like outsiders even when they can find affordable housing,” she continued. “Many are forced back into the closet in retirement homes or separated from their significant others in assisted living facilities because they are not legally married. This is a group that has been ostracized and hurt. They are highly marginalized.

“Many people think of gays as young and wealthy,” she said. “This shows a different side of the gay community.”

With the focus on the lives of these seven individuals, Coal details their personal struggles to get by on very limited resources and on their individual hopes when they discover that Triangle Square could provide them with a home they’ve only dreamed of until now. Unfortunately, there are only 103 units available to serve a self-identified population of 75,000 Los Angeles-based, LGBT senior citizens.

To accommodate the several hundred applications that were filed, a lottery was held to determine who would move into the new facility.

“My goal, as a director, was to develop a character piece to show viewers who these people really are,” Coal explained. “For this community, home is important.”

Viewers also see the frustrations involved. The lottery isn’t a smooth process. Calls made to solicit more information sometimes require long waits on hold ... or disconnections. And yet, the seniors continue to hope ... and wait.

If their names are chosen during the first drawing, they are invited to fill out more extensive applications. They attend multiple application workshops ... and finally the grand opening of the new building.

“The individuals we filmed were fascinating,” Coal said. “Their cheerful outlook and availability to us despite the discrimination and problems they encounter just made me fall in love with them. I’m hoping that as people view this film, they will fall in love with them, too.”

Coal, who is now at work on a new documentary, believes that the film touches on many of the common elements we all will have to deal with: Where will I go when I am old? Am I prepared? How will I adjust?

“For many of these seniors, this is the last move they will make,” she said. “To see the joy in their faces when they realize they can stay in a place where they can be themselves is heartwarming.”

For more information on the movie, visit www.aplacetolivemovie.com.