The first home for LGBT + seniors in Lyon in 2024?
THE‘association Les Audacieuses et les Audacieux wish to open‘here 2024, with l‘assistance from the Lyon municipality, the first LGBT + retirement home in France.
Behind the deliberately vague name of “House of Diversity ”(of which we have a feeling that‘it was chosen to avoid any accusation of communitarianism and not to frighten the indispensable institutional partners), Stéphane Sauvé has a very specific project in mind: to open a retirement home dedicated to LGBT + seniors, the first in France. It has been four years since this former director of Establishments d‘accommodation for dependent elderly people (Ehpad) matures this idea, which has already been successfully tested in Madrid, Montreal, Berlin, Stockholm and New York. In 2017, he created the social start-up Rainbold Society to generate it, at the‘Origin in the 20th arrondissement of Paris. But the departure, at the end of 2020, of the‘one of the main partners, the Foundation of the Little Brothers of the Poor, sounds the death knell for this prospect. With l‘help in particular by Christophe Dercamp, former adviser to the elderly of the 4th arrondissement of Lyon, the project then relocated to the capital of the Gauls, where it found an attentive ear with the new municipality. VS‘is thus that, on July 7, the‘association Les Audacieuses et les Audacieux, which took over from Rainbold Society, arrived in the salons of the‘Town Hall, in the presence of‘Alexandre Chevalier, deputy mayor responsible for intergenerational links and the quality of life of seniors.
“Éto avoid returning to the closet for his old age ”
But in fact, why a friendly retirement home? ” Poto avoid going back to the closet for his old age », Explains Stéphane Sauvé. D‘after a report submitted in 2013 by several associations to the Minister for the Elderly of‘then, Michèle Delaunay, France would have one million LGBT + seniors over the age of 60, who would live alone for 65% of‘between them and them. They will thus be much more victims of‘isolation that their straight conscripts, due to family breakdowns caused by LGBTphobias, or because 90% of‘between them and them n‘have no‘child. And many, to avoid the judgments of other residents or caregivers, hide their homosexuality when they‘they and they enter an Ehpad.
Hotlines at the LGBTI Center in Lyon to make yourself known
To carry out his project, Stéphane Sauvé seeks to create in Lyon a small affinity group of interested seniors, aged 55 and over. ” THE’ogoal is to ensure that‘they see each other, know each other and choose each other before‘enter the House of Diversity », He specifies. The Audacious and the Audacious are already about fifteen in Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes and the‘At the beginning of October, the association joined the LGBTI Center in Lyon, where it will soon host a hotline, with the aim of recruiting volunteers of all ages. She also intends to organize health workshops there (focusing in particular on the prevention of loss of life.‘autonomy of the elderly) and convivial times to make themselves known to the Lyon community. THE‘the horizon chosen (2024) is less far than‘he doesn‘it seems, and everything could go quite quickly, since‘it is not a matter‘will not act‘a new building built especially for the‘occasion, but d‘an existing building, made available by the City. As in most shared habitats, it includes individual dwellings (between ten and fifteen) and common living spaces and wishes to be open to its neighborhood. And, if everything works as planned, Stéphane Sauvé is already dreaming of‘open d‘other similar places, why not in houses this time.
More information by email ([email protected]), or on the website and the Facebook page from Bold and Daring.
A meeting is scheduled for November 19, 2021 from 5 p.m. at Café Chenavard, 20 rue Paul Chenavard-Lyon 1 / Link to the event Facebook.