Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic Report on Policy Changes to Improve Lives of LGBT Seniors
Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic Report on Policy Changes to Improve Lives of LGBT Seniors
New York, June 14, 2012— Older LGBT Americans often face discrimination, mistreatment, and social isolation due to their sexual orientation. A new report released today by the Columbia Law School Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic outlines policy changes states can make to improve the lives of LGBT seniors. The report, “Elder Equality: A Roadmap for Supporting and Protecting LBGT Seniors,” focuses on caregiving, housing, and health care programs in Florida and also provides a set of recommendations advocates throughout the country can adopt and/or tailor to their individual states.
The three key recommendations are:
- ensure that state aging programs are attentive to the needs of LGBT seniors;
- extend Medicaid impoverishment and family medical leave protections to LGBT families; and
- protect and support LGBT seniors’ access to caregiving, health care, and housing.
Hillary Schneller ’12 and Andrea Johnson ’12 prepared the report for Equality Florida—the state’s largest civil rights organization dedicated to advocacy on behalf of LGBT people—in advance of the first White House LGBT Conference on Aging held in Miami on May 7. The conference drew attention to the growing challenges LGBT people face as they age, including discrimination, social isolation, and financial insecurity. The report outlines steps that can be taken to implement changes on many issues discussed at the conference.
“The report highlights the difficulties older LGBT people face finding and affording supportive, culturally competent care and sets out a plan for improving LGBT eldercare, with special focus on health care, housing, and caregiving,” said Schneller, who attended last month’s conference on the Clinic’s behalf. The report also addresses nursing homes and assisted living facilities and explains how the state can extend certain Medicaid provisions to better protect family members against impoverishment when an elderly family member requires long-term care.
As the report shows, “Only some of these important changes require legislation. Many others can be made through state administrative agency action and engagement with the eldercare community,” added Suzanne B. Goldberg, Director of the Clinic and Herbert and Doris Wechsler Clinical Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.
Columbia Law School’s Sexuality and Gender Law Clinic addresses cutting-edge issues in sexuality and gender law through litigation, legislation, public policy analysis and other forms of advocacy. Under the guidance of Professor Suzanne Goldberg, clinic students have worked on a wide range of projects, from constitutional litigation to legislative advocacy to immigration cases, to serve both individual and organizational clients in cases involving issues of sexuality and gender law.