hi welcome to only seniors i'm tom callahan everybody needs a place to stay whether they're black white old young gay straight you name it somebody needs a place to live one of the dr money welcome to only seniors thank you so much tom it's and the lights here good tell us about mary's house for older adults mary's house for odor adults well it's a dream of mine to create housing for older adults in the dream came about when my dad got sick and he needed a place to go and my dad was a middle class guy and a couple hippies to grow up  together so he picked a nice home to go to but the people didn't know then him they did know that he was middle class that he had a lot of property that he had family yet my mother my siblings and friends to  and look after him so it occurred to me what would have happened if he hadn't had that income or had those court systems in place what had would have happened had he banned gay a gay male or trans woman heaven forbid what would have happened and so it occurred to me when he left me this house he went to and what to do with the house and i decided to create housing for older adults that was l g b t q friendly focused housing units in the united states with mary's house is the only one that is communally focused like its focus or the communal needs like family another thing that happen tom when i was thinking about doing this like there are a lot of like the six units that they're building they have maybe a hundred fifty units or seventy five units and they take care of the person have it affordable place to stay but i learned after before i really started working on mary's house i learned that a guy had died in his nice retirement home and he was found five days later dad i mean no one looked for him for five days and so that made me think that i wanted to be wanted to be a more than just a house for people to live and that was affordable i wanted to build a family i wanted to build communal living i wanted to be able you know the way we grew up you know when you were down the street people knew your name and checked and when you you know and so that's when i went to jail you know you're using the term communal living can you describe that a little bit better for us it's like the golden girls model you remember i remember the golden girls that's appropriate model that's it's like that model very good so they'll be able to share kitchen living room and social yes it'll be more social so everyone will have their own bathroom you know i'm married and my spouse really likes her own bathroom so everyone will have each space will have its own bathroom closet  in washington d c but i go to conferences and the same thing happens in new jersey it happens in california the appen sit in maryland where you have to deal with government agencies to have the math right plans and go to the right agency so the shorts short answer is where with the hits on planning to make sure that we've got the right zoning to build these fifteen units so that's that's exactly where we are what is the next the area there are multifamily units so we'll read to be multifamily and we'll need to raise money to do that raising money is always there always in the background and  two questions for you the first short are you going to be using the existing structure that's there or building a new one we're going to be building a new one when we first started tom we're going to built six units and that makes sense to me we could build the house as a four bedroom house so be easy to turn it into a six bedroom unit but there are rules in the washington d c that say that you cannot have six unrelated people living in a unit with a lease with separate leases and separate lives so that wouldn't work so so now we're building fifteen units and with  and that mary's house received at orica and you mention that you're in the middle of fundraising correct we are in the middle of fundraising correct where the pre development stage is actually and are you a nonprofit we are  nonprofit five a one c three s ok so people can donate to this cause oh absolutely absolutely good thank you yes just was wondering you know wondering about that well i guess they can get that information on that web site correct absolutely you can get the information on the web site you can donate money you can donate your time will take your time your gifts and your talents and that's good because there's you know it's good to hear that there's more than one way to donate absolutely actually now you mention that there are six other properties similar to this but not quite like mary's house in the u s yes are there any on the east coast yes there's one in this could this project be replicated throughout the united states wants at all times this is the only absolutely and their cost is simple i mean we cost one point two million to build and operate out so from start to finish is one point two million which is not easy money to build housing right so it's a small amount of money and of course it can be replicated if we if we were going to do it again we would probably so you can get a house in replicated you can do it with four people or eight people or sixteen people which is the model for mary's house and that giant sixty people or eighty people in the model for mary south is small so absolutely it can be replicate so not only communal but familial is right as well absolute absence of building a family yes absolutely no you had mentioned that you know your impetus to this whole thing was your father and and what if because you don't do the things that you used to do i when you stop driving so used to go to the store used to go bowling you used to go play golf if you don't stand up in our city for metro access or have friends that take you places you don't go places then what do you do you stay in your house and you act isolate i take care of my stepmother who who stay with me she's eighty four and she's in the day care program but she has  and her daughter and so i take care of her but often l g b t q people of this generation don't have any children so who takes care of them so there they are more isolated so isolation great problem for them and not getting out which can lead to depression and suicide i've heard that you know to the biggest problems facing any senior as they age is the also can face abuse does that add to that is true that's true anecdotally and empirical research is showing the same thing that you know people aren't educated enough you know and it seems often that our society is getting me or in terms of the bt q people i mean if we look in the news now of the laws that are happening and some rough southern states with transgender folks trying to regulate who uses which bathroom you know so it's really so if you if you were old a person for example and you were so it's hard being old that's it is this discrimination that comes with getting older like i tell people i am platinum blonde oh there you go you know but there's true ages i'm out there so if you put l g b another oppression on top of being old like when you when you're old you have to stand up straighter and you have to talk a lot harder and louder and we will so it's so if you go into a facility you have to pick your battle gosh i need to be taken care of here well i'm not going to give someone a reason not to like we all want to be liked and we all want to be treated fairly so i'm not going to give you a reason not to like me so many older people go back into the closet there's a about that so you don't be your whole self in your golden years you're not been your whole self put part of yourself back and side which is is terrible which leads again to depression isolation and are just because they've gotten older and fought so hard and long for the rights that they've achieved that's sad it's very serious and i was doing some research and it was an african american woman and back in the day she was a big day i mean you know big and now she has grandchildren and she said oh no i don't do that stuff anymore and she said i'm with her daughter and i doubt it doesn't necessarily approve of it so in this in this support in her support system she don't do that stuff more it made my heart break may my heart break because i know that you are you are you no matter who you are so to say is a big movement about elders and elder abuse i was just talking to a gentleman who the next three get the organization but we're talking about housing and elder abuse so yes there's a lot of there can be embarrassed so you don't want to report it you can be scammed easily and i did learn this yesterday had it not just went to a conference and if there's some research that says your cognitive ability to think it through lessons as you age tom there's no menace with that subset of a thing so but even in a way the jury's still out of that but he was saying that and so you say that in the context of older people making bad decisions because i was saying you get to me no matter what you get to make bad decisions people don't get to make decisions for you last year classified as incompetent if you're not close had is incompetent you can make that bad decision so used to share that with me but there was a guy so the companion started stealing from him you know first those clothes and then is my money and the gentleman said well when i came home and my piano was gone i knew i had to do something and he finally went to the label laid to to get something done but he was embarrassed you know and so when people talk about elder abuse often they don't talk about the things that can happen to gay people they just talk about elder abuse generally but yes you know you can be targeted discriminated against fearful were who you are out to all those kinds of things now i recently heard information about analogy between a resident of a community who was being continuously raped yeah and you know just and again like you said was afraid to say anything for fear of retribution and when you think about it you know what's worse you know you know it's not a fair yeah so mary's house would be the type of welcoming community somebody could move to yes to you know that would express that would be opening and welcoming to the diversity of the community it sounds like and my correct absolutely absolutely so you can bring your your  lack self your tall self your fat your old self and your lesbian gay bisexual transgender to marry what are you targeting as a possible opening date for the community you know if somebody writes a check today we can open it in six weeks ok how much of a check would you need for that one point seven million one point seven point two million now one point i was just going to get some extra curtains  seven it's just it's extraordinary is from three to seven i'm just going over in my mind what happens there we have people from age twenty one to eighty one in the same room doing dancing to this one was getting once a three and we had waited for over a year for something that should have taken six months and i went down to our office and less than six weeks we had our travel one c three so cheese  she's always just been good to l g b t q people the citizens of washington d c she's just a trooper so she's our she's our girl and we're very giving her this this award for just standing up for people's rights you know so she's one of the awarded now tell me about because i've been to your website tell me about the i t k parties that you host oh yes those a  we've had people give have these parties embrace a thousand dollars which is nice we've so you say i'm going to have a party you have bite your friends your friends can you know i'm just glad that i could you know that i had this vision that i was given this vision because often we don't think about what are we going to do when we get old i know that i don't want to go back into the closet that's what i really created this for you know when my wife and i when we get old i don't want to be put in this space that like this old friend of mine that i don't do this more i do this this is my life i am a lesbian i love my wife i love my grandson i love my son and when them to be able to visit me in a place it's comfortable that that i love them so that's mary south it's a place it honors all of me thank you for being a guest on only seniors thank you tom for having me no matter who you are where you live you deserve dignity in aging looks like mary's house for older adults is on the right track