About a month ago I had a phone call from a man in an aged care residential environment. He had found a listing for GRAI (Gay Retirement Association Inc) in the pages of Out in Perth.

He was a gay man in his late 60s and he was seeking some social support. Quite frankly he was lonely and feeling a bit like the ‘only gay in the village’. GRAI has received several calls like this over the last 12 months. Each time we bring it to a Board meeting and each time we seem unable to actually come up with a real action plan that provides something for older people desperately wanting to connect with other gay people or the gay community.

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Last time I had such a call I put some effort into contacting other LGBTI organisations in Perth to see if they could help. All said either it was not part of their core business or they did not have the resources to do this. So now I am putting the call out via Out in Perth, to the community. Is this a situation that we as a community can respond to in an active, positive and sustained way? There are some mainstream organisations that provide visitor services to people in aged care residential services however there is no LGBTI specific service. Should we be partnering with such an agency to see if they can appropriately assist this man? Or do we as a community have some energy to organise this for ourselves?

Does a community like Perth care about its elders enough to think about what we can offer in this area? If so how do we progress this? Is there scope for partnering with some existing LGBTI organisation who may want to add this to their business? Can we promote some intergenerational activity perhaps? Does anyone know of funding sources to support such an approach? Could such a scheme extend past a visiting scheme to perhaps include being able to offer social outings as well. As we get older our ability to be completely self reliant in the face of declining mobility and perhaps social outlets becomes a challenge. Being socially isolated affects both physical and emotional well-being.

If anyone is interested in pursuing ideas around how we as a community or individually can support our elders in this way, GRAI would like to hear from you. Please email info@grai.org.au so one our board members can call you back. I hope we do not turn our back on this man and others like ihim.