A Community-Engaged Scoping Review of Affordable Housing Models for LGBTQ+ Older Adults

LGBTQ+ older adults have heightened needs for affordable housing, given structural and systemic barriers and inequities across their lives. Little is known about affordable housing models for LGBTQ+ older adults.

This study presents the first comprehensive review of LGBTQ+ affordable housing to date. It uses an innovative multimethod community-engaged approach that combines Arksey and O'Malley's five-step framework for scoping reviews with community-engaged data to answer the following community-driven research questions: What affordable housing models exist for LGBTQ+ older adults? How do these models address the diverse needs of LGBTQ+ older adults?

Data revealed ten affordable housing models for LGBTQ+ older adults: affordable housing developments, naturally occurring retirement communities, cohousing, mobile communities, homesharing, community land trusts, accessory dwelling units, limited equity cooperative housing, restored multifamily and single-family homes, and tiny homes. Affordable housing developments dominated and tended to be overrepresented by white residents. Transgender and lesbian older adults and LGBTQ+ older adults of color often led projects that invoked nontraditional housing models.

While affordable housing developments for LGBTQ+ older adults are growing, different models may be needed to address the diverse needs of this community. Intersecting experiences of trauma, discrimination, and exclusion may be driving the need and desire among transgender older adults, older lesbians, and LGBTQ+ older adults of color to develop alternative affordable housing models. Understanding the diverse needs of housing for LGBTQ+ older adults will help policymakers, practitioners, and researchers better serve this diverse community.