Serving LGBT Veterans: Los Angeles LGBT Center's Veterans Initiative

The Los Angeles LGBT Center's Senior Service Department in 2011 began working to secure older LGBT veterans Veteran Administration (VA) benefits. One veteran's story helps to illustrate why this work is compelling and needed.Paul (not his real name) is a 93-year-old LGBT veteran who received weekly or bi-weekly case management from the Center for four years. His needs included housing, transportation, and food assistance. In addition, he would routinely use the Center's Senior Helping Seniors Fund (an ongoing pool of collected donations used to help struggling older adult clients pay for basic necessities, mostly nutritional) just to have enough to eat. After the Center helped Paul secure his VA benefits, he no longer needed weekly or bi-weekly assistance.Case managers continue to check in on him, but it is not due to housing, food insecurity, or transportation crises. Paul now lives in a clean apartment in a safe neighborhood, owns a modest, fuel-efficient car, and can pay all of his bills and purchase wholesome food. He has become a major donor to the Los Angeles LGBT Center and a regular contributor to the Seniors Helping Seniors Fund.Traditional Care, with Innovative Wrap-Around ServicesThe Los Angeles LGBT Center's Senior Services Department combines traditional elements of eldercare with an innovative suite of wrap-around services specifically designed to help LGBT elders like Paul successfully age in place. Senior Services provides its more than 3,500 clients with more than 140 educational, social, and creative programs per month, at the Village at Ed Gould Plaza (the Village) community center and Triangle Square affordable housing complex.Since 2011, the Department also has trained more than 3,000 professional aging staffin California. In May 2011, the Center provided its first training to the Los Angeles VA's West LA Campus, and in June 2011, the Center and the VA partnered to offer a comprehensive day-long benefits workshop called a Stand Down.Center staffpresumed that if clients like Paul were able to interface with the VA at the Center-a space older adults knew was safe and free from discrimination-they would be more likely to apply for their veterans benefits. The partnership between the Center and the VA is predicated on the agreement that all Stand Downs happen at the Village community center.The VA provides benefitseligibility screening, enrollment in benefits, and one-on-one meetings with benefits counselors. Center case managers and master's of social work interns help to steer clients to the proper benefits counselors and, by being present at counseling sessions, help normalize the experience for clients. They also facilitate a "safe room" that any veteran may use for stress reduction. In 2014, the Center also partnered with Public Counsel's Center for Veterans Advancement (http://goo.gl/ mk400d) to provide free legal counsel to veterans who have either been denied services or who were dishonorably or less than honorably discharged.Closeted Military History of LGBT VeteransThe service of the LGBT people in our nation's military is virtually invisible. "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," enacted in 1994, was for many the first visible recognition that LGBT people served in all branches of the U.S. armed forces. This attempt to closet service members was unwelcome in the LGBT community and was summarily repealed in September 2011. LGBT veterans receiving services from the Center's Senior Service Department served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. The service and life experiences of these men and women were vastly different due to cohort, political, and social mores, and their own internalized homophobia.For instance, the "Blue Discharge," or other than honorable discharge used against so many African American service members, was extended to LGBT service members in WWII (Jones, 1973). This discharge status was deemed other than honorable and disqualified all who received a Blue Discharge from the GI Bill and VA benefits. …