Gay Housing
Affordable housing within a supportive Gay Community neighborhood both of which remains ours.
Edward H. Sebesta
Copyright © 2024 Edward H. Sebesta
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 9798304066334
DEDICATION
To Steven Scales whose support has made this book possible.
INTRODUCTION
Gay neighborhoods everywhere in the United States are disappearing as straights move in and economically displace Gays.
If you had a Gay neighborhood with the housing specifically built for Gays we wouldn’t lose that Gay neighborhood. The Gay nature of the neighborhood would literally be built in. It would be physically very difficult and perhaps impossible for straights to move in and displace Gays.
The Gay neighborhoods were originally run down or even abandon spaces of existing housing stock, that Gays repaired and restored. They were however, structures designed for straight people, so when the neighborhoods became desirable, there was nothing to keep straight people from displacing the Gays. Hence, we are losing our Gay neighborhoods across the United States and Canada.
The many Gays in the Gay neighborhood were renters and hence were a factor in increasing the value of the neighborhood, they faced financial stress as rents increased, and then exile when they couldn’t afford the neighborhood and further, they didn’t receive any portion of the appreciating real estate value.
Gay housing would have multiple benefits:
1. The concentration of Gays could be nearly 100%, instead of the 3% in the general population. It would be easier for Gays to meet Gays, it would provide a Gay neighborhood community, social support, and
this concentration of Gays would support businesses, services, and institutions for them.
2. Types of housing options could be provided which would be significantly less expensive and more affordable for Gays and provide entry to equity ownership of their own housing.
3. Security would be significantly better. With the higher concentration of Gays, there would be fewer straight people present, and therefore fewer potentially homophobic straights. Also, in a neighborhood where Gays are nearly 100%, homophobes would be discouraged from attacking superior numbers. Having Gays concentrated into a specific geographic location would allow for various programs of neighborhood self-defense such as neighborhood patrols, distribution of whistles, training in tear gas. Neighborhoods could be designed in such a way that enhanced security for Gays. Home owner association could restrict entry. Finally, as a concentrated block of voters, demands could be made that the police provide protection.
Gay housing in this proposal is housing designed for Gays without children, and who won’t be having children. This represents the great majority of Gay men, more than 90%, if not 95%. It is not “queer” housing nor LGBTQ+ housing.
These other groups certainly have housing needs and someone should be working on those housing needs. As for Gays with children, the existing housing stock build for heterosexual families likely will meet many of their needs.
Something that is designed for everyone isn’t designed specifically for one person or one group of people.
There is no assumption that Gay housing as defined and designed in this monograph is necessarily going to be for everyone. There are diverse needs and more than one type of Gay housing will be proposed, and there is an expectation that this monograph will inspire others to design yet other types of Gay housing.
Opposition to Gay housing is opposition to affordable housing for Gays and Gay neighborhoods and social support for Gays and likely driven by assimilationist ideologies.
Concentration
The loss of Gay neighborhoods is felt keenly by many Gays. It was in the Gay neighborhoods that Gays often were a majority and had a space outside of straight society. There was physical safety. The businesses generally were oriented to supplying Gay needs and wants and were supportive. Anti-Gay individuals, businesses and institutions would leave. The elected officials were attentive to the needs of the Gay community, and the Gay neighborhood was the source of the first Gay elected officials.
You weren’t before a straight audience and could live in a community without the straight gaze. If some straight person didn’t like something, they could be told to leave.
Socially, it was a great place to meet other Gay people and hence find a boyfriend or build up a social network. You would run into people you knew and they would have their friends and you would meet them. You might be in a store and meet people with a shared interest. There would be the bars which were neighborhood bars and people would meet people.
On the street, if there was someone you wanted to meet, you could approach them without fear of problems. Very likely they were Gay, and even if they weren’t, they knew they were in a Gay neighborhood and it was something that they should expect might happen, and even if they were violent, they were planning on being violent, they were surrounded by Gays who could stop it.
Gay neighborhoods were places where it was a Gay place and for us and largely run by us.
Gay housing would create Gay neighborhoods which would be preserved and the Gay neighborhood level of concentration could be maintained. Gay neighborhoods built from the ground up as Gay housing, could be designed to further concentrate Gays in ways that provide social support.
Affordable housing and ownership
By having Gay neighborhoods not be destination sites for straights, that would reduce a lot of the pressure to drive up rents and the cost of housing. However, there are other reasons that a specific Gay housing would be more affordable.
The following are some briefly stated ideas of what housing designed for Gays could be as a starting point for discussion. They will be discussed more in depth in later sections.
The design of a standard home has what is called the “primary bedroom,” formerly known as the “master bedroom” for the parents, and then two or more smaller bedrooms for children. These houses, such as the ranch style home, are design for heterosexual reproduction. Gays without children don’t need these smaller bedrooms. One bathroom can be eliminated, the kitchen can be smaller, the eating area. There doesn’t have to be a family room in addition to the living room. The lot of land doesn’t have to be as big. The heating and cooling would be less. Taxes would be less. There would be considerable savings.
Alternatively, the same house if it has three “primary” bedrooms, could house three couples, who could split the cost of the house, taxes, and utilities three ways. It with two children’s bedrooms not being “primary” bedrooms, the total cost of the housing structure wouldn’t be that much more, and it would be split three ways, making housing much more affordable for Gays.
Note, that this description of the house designed for Gays is referring to three “primary” bedrooms which doesn’t make language sense. “Primary” means first in order of time or development, or first in rank, importance or value. Since we are discussing three adult bedrooms of equal rank, none of them are primary. The talk of primary bedrooms assumes a house designed for heterosexual reproduction with a bedroom for the parents and smaller bedrooms for their children.
Students need affordable housing and some of the ways to provide affordable housing are student fraternities and student dorms. For adults there used to be boarding houses. These types of structures are already would largely meet Gay needs and they could be very affordable. The housing could be structured where the residents own a share and room in the dorm like building, a share and room in the fraternity type building. Cafeteria meals would be an opportunity for economization also.
It would be unlike the situation many Gays face now, where a large fraction of their income goes to rent, instead they would end up owning some small amount of real estate and when the debt is paid off, they would just have the shared cost of the utilities, taxes, and maintenance. They would have equity also and have something to sell later if they sought a different housing arrangement. Instead of facing ever higher rent for the rest of their life, they could pursue a path of ownership of Gay housing.
Safety
Gay neighborhoods have increased safety for Gays. There are fewer homophobic straight people about. Gay neighborhoods have a defensible concentration of Gays. Gay neighborhoods have had patrols. There have been organizations handing out whistles. The author was in a program where we received training so we could own chemical mace in the State of California. One of the major reasons a Gay neighborhood can be safer is that being a concentration of voters, they can demand their elected officials work to have resources like the police protect the neighborhood. With their electoral power they can also work to stop police harassment of Gays, though this is largely an issue of the past.
The structure of Gay housing could provide more security. With six adults living in the house with three adult bedrooms, it would be likely an adult is home at all times and burglary would be lessened. With six people in the house, a small group of homophobic would be gay-bashers would likely end up running for their own safety, especially if the neighborhood is made up of Gay housing.
A student dorm type housing would have many people to stop any homophobic assault and even if there was a mob, it would have a couple very defensible points. Some of the other types of construction that will be proposed, could be very defensible.
Summary
There are real opportunities to provide for the housing, economic security, and safety of Gays with housing designed for Gays which would provide a real material benefit for the great majority of Gays.
CHAPTER ONE
CONCEPTUALIZING HOUSING DESIGNED FOR GAYS.
We grow up in housing design for straights, we living in housing designed for straights, and we only see housing designed for straights presented as ordinary housing. As a consequence we don’t recognize it as straight housing and we don’t even think that there exist Gay housing. We also assume that everything we see currently in housing is the way things are, must be, in the design of useful housing.
To conceive and design Gay housing we need to question absolutely everything, no matter how obvious it might seem that what we see is the way housing should be or must be or is the optimal solution. Systematically we need to think about every element that makes up housing. We have to press our questioning to the point of absurdity and beyond to be able to free our minds from presumptions which assume presently existing housing is the only way that housing can exist.
When the author started brainstorming and taking notes, at about 30 or so notes, the author thought that the list was about complete, then when away from the computer, something would come to mind. The list ended up being 63 items. It is almost a certainty that there are ideas about Gay housing which were omitted, but will seem obvious when we think of them.
When the author first started thinking about Gay housing, affordability
of housing for Gays was the primary concern. There were ways of designing housing that would reduce the price of entry level housing ownership to just a fraction of what it might be for entry level housing not designed for Gays. As the brainstorming progressed, the concentrating of Gays began to be seen as a benefit, and potentially an important additional benefit. It wasn’t until the author started writing the Introduction, and thought about why we lament the loss of the Gay neighborhoods that the author realize that concentrating Gays was a critically important aspect of Gay housing.
The examples given in the Introduction are modification or adaptations of existing housing types. It might be that Gay housing needs to be conceptualized without any existing form of housing in mind, but conceptualized by deriving the housing design from the needs of Gays. The Gay person needs to sleep, kept warm or cool, not rained on, prepare food, have place to keep food, keep property secure and wind out, etc.
Heteronormativity isn’t always obvious, and in housing it might prove to be present in ways we have difficulty perceiving.
CHAPTER TWO
COLLECTIVE HOUSING
The student dorm and the fraternity house provide examples of inexpensive single sex housing for men. In the case of an American student dorm there is a room for one or two students, and shared bathroom facilities for all the students on the floor. Usually there is a common room to watch television. The men’s dorm bathroom has both urinals and toilets reducing the need for toilets. Eating is in a cafeteria where meal cost can be kept low. In East Asia a student dorm can have two bunk beds and house four students. In Gay dorm type housing the bunkbeds could have under the beds a single shelf of drawers for belongings.
Though this might be considered only acceptable for students and not independent adults, the alternative is years of rent and not achieving any equity in any type of housing. This minimal housing arrangement is a path for Gays to own their housing.
At this time, 2024, the average apartment in Dallas, Texas, hardly the most expensive living area in the United States is $1200 a month, or $14,400 a year. In five years that will be $72,000 rent and the renter will have zero accumulated housing equity.
A student type dorm housing for Gays could allow much lower monthly payments with the benefit of owning their room and share of the operation in maybe five or ten years of payments at most. They would have equity. A place which only had maintenance, insurance, utilities, and taxes as the primary costs. Being only a room with shared facilities these would be minimal costs. A Gay person could decide to either continue living in the dorm type housing or sell their share and move on to another type of Gay housing.
A further reduced cost of living would be a barracks arrangement. Though it would lack a lot in many respects, it would be affordable, and as limited as it was, it would allow a Gay person to own a bed in a barracks and share in its facilities with a considerable reduction in monthly costs. Even with a minimal income the renter could accumulate equity in his arrangement and additionally save money.
The goal of this collected Gay housing is to allow even those working in low-income occupations, could afford some type of housing arrangement so they would not be drained of their earnings by paying rent and would have some modest equity in some type of housing. No working Gay person would be abandoned to paying rent for the rest of their life.
Acquiring equity in one type of collected Gay housing, they would have an option of selling the one type of Gay housing and move on to another type of Gay housing.
What young men do now, as group of men, get a landlord who is willing
to rent an apartment to five men, a one or two-bedroom apartment and they then split its use. The sofa can be an allocated bed at night. The apartment was designed for a couple, and so it is a crowded arrangement, not cost efficient as a dorm, and at the end of five years the young men have no equity, but they will have had rent increases as the years pass by.
For the dorm arrangement it would be adult men only so that the bathroom and shower facilities could be shared with maximum utilization resulting in less need for facilities. It would mean only a single set of facilities.
As an all-male living arrangement, the rooms and hallways would be clothing optional at night from 10 pm to 8 am for convenience of using the bathroom facilities at night. Visitors would be allowed during the day. For women visitors there would be a separate restroom.
These collected living arrangements could be a permanent arrangement for a Gay person, or the beginning point for moving on to other Gay arrangements. Whether the person stays with the initial stage of dorm like housing or moves on to other forms of Gay housing, it is a path of Gays being owners of housing from the very beginning and not renters struggling to save for some beginning housing or those sharing a crowded apartment with no hope of ever owning housing and being financially stressed.
As a collected living arrangement there would have to be some type of governance with rules of behavior and there would be obligations on the individual residents. This would involve overnight visitors and the use of shared facilities. There would have to be a governing body and the rules drawn up so they could respond to objectionable behavior, but not be excessive in their restrictions either. Though this type of governance might now allow the degree of independence as an apartment, the person isn’t paying ever increasing rent with no accumulation of equity either.
When the unit or share is paid off, it could be sold and the Gay person would have those proceeds for some other housing arrangement, and also savings since his earnings weren’t going all to rent.
This type of shared housing could offer opportunities to economize in other ways than cafeteria meals. There could be group purchasing of goods and services.
Though these types of potential housing have been discussed as a means to have low coast housing and reducing the cost of living, they could offer other opportunities also.
My aunt lived in a retirement apartment community with areas for individual gardens and facilities for activities. These barracks or dorm setups could reduce cost in one area to provide for other facilities that could be shared. There might be a gymnasium, swimming pool, sauna, tennis courts, activity rooms, craft rooms, and shared gardening space. A Gay couple would be giving up the partially used room of the straight house for the space they need to sleep in and extensive facilities for activities in the Gay housing. It could be conceptualized in the reverse order. Twenty houses having each a gym, sauna, tennis court, sauna, gardening space, swimming pool would have twenty spaces of each perhaps used 10% of the weekly hours. A person would have to have a substantial income to afford such a place. A Gay group arrangement would just need one or two of each with a high utilization. Instead of 20 tiny gyms, 20 tennis courts, 20 saunas, 20 swimming pools, it could be a modest gym, one or two tennis courts, two saunas, and one big swimming pool being shared, at a considerable reduction in cost.
When Gays aren’t trying to adapt straight housing to Gay needs, a lot of opportunities open up for efficient use of resources. So the adoption of barracks or dorms might not be to reduce costs, but obtain a type of housing that provides additional facilities than might be gotten for a nuclear (straight) family house.
Besides the financial opportunities involved with these types of housing there are powerful social benefits. As discussed before, Gays being 3% of the male population, are challenged to meet other Gays. It is one of the benefits of a Gay neighborhood that Gays are concentrated and the social environment changed such that Gays can meet each other and meet each other without fear of consequences of accidentally approaching a straight man. In urban settings where there is foot traffic on the sidewalks, Gays meet Gay friends while walking.
The complaints by many Gays about the difficulties of meeting other Gays in night clubs, bars have been going on for generations, and the hookup apps have their own discontented users.
In group Gay housing, Gays are concentrated and would see each other every day. An individual Gay person would not only be familiar with other residents in this group housing, but there would be a tendency for a resident to introduce other residents to their friends. It would be an immediate expansion of the resident’s social networks. Further, if there were other group Gay housing arrangements nearby, they could visit each other. The group Gay housing could have a social director. A dorm type facility might have multiple floors allowing an extensive social network. A Gay neighborhood of group Gay housing would provide a Gay support network and a Gay world.
Governing the complex would necessitate Gays being brought together and would lead to socializing.
Gay housing would also offer security. Unlike an apartment or house, where the issue of homophobia is present once you walk out the door, a building of group Gay housing would be a safe space and with just a few entrances, a very defensible space. A group of Gays in that housing could also undertake efforts to make the neighborhood safer.
A neighborhood with group Gay housing would be nearly impervious to being eliminated by the market forces which are eliminating the present
Gay communities.
A neighborhood built with barracks and dorm type housing, just wouldn’t be a housing stock that a nuclear family could physically use. The buildings would have to be torn down, or subject to such extensive reconstructions that it would be perhaps cheaper just to tear down.
Gay art should be built into the housing arrangements. Like bas-reliefs and sculptures with Gay themes. They should be part of a deed restriction so they can’t be removed.
There would be other barriers to this real estate being acquired by the general public.
The financial pressures pushing Gays out would be very much minimized. Since the housing would end up being owned by the Gay residents, and they wouldn’t be renters, they wouldn’t be priced out of the neighborhood by high rents if the neighborhood became fashionable. Since it would be affordable housing arrangement, there would be no financial incentive to move, even if there were increases in some costs, like higher taxes on the real estate. In fact, the Gay neighborhood might be an oasis of affordable housing in a city of increasing housing costs. Being that the property would be only useful to Gays, the real estate values might not go up. It would also be affordable for Gays to move into the community, even if real estate in the rest of the city was rising. The group Gay living arrangements would be isolated somewhat from pressures that might drive others out of the city.
Concentrated, Gays would have political power to make sure that city governance, like zoning, and taxes weren’t adverse to their welfare.
Most powerfully, would be that the group Gay housing wouldn’t be part of the general market where real estate is a commodity. Since it would be ownership of shares or rights in group Gay housing, the property wouldn’t pass out of the Gay community by sale to the public when an individual Gay person passed away or moved out. The share or rights would be sold to another Gay individual.
Even if the neighborhood real estate had a major increase in value to the point that moving would be necessitated, the residents would receive the value of the real estate and not some landlord, and the group
arrangement would have the means to construct a new place. Or the residents would have the proceeds to purchase a share or rights in a new group Gay housing arrangement.
Group Gay housing would make Gay neighborhoods extremely resistant to market forces that might destroy them.
None group housing interspersed in this type of neighborhood might be more resistant to losing Gay residents. Being located within an area of group Gay housing, they might be highly desired by Gay residents to purchase competitively and less desirable for straights, since they would be somewhat isolated.
CHAPTER THREE
INDIVIDUAL HOME OWNERSHIP IN A GAY NEIGHBORHOOD
Some Gays are going to want individual ownership of their housing as separate units that can be sold. The challenge will be how can you create a Gay neighborhood that won’t be erased by the same forces that have erased previously existing Gay neighborhoods.
Multiple things will need to be done so it is a Gay neighborhood and continues as such.
1. The neighborhood needs to be a home owners association so that it controlled to be a Gay neighborhood and support items #2, #3, and #4 in this list.
2. The individual housing needs to be designed for Gays and not heterosexual reproductive units.
3. The home owners association needs to be also a Gay social services organization with monthly charges for services directed towards Gays.
4. The home owners association needs to be a social club organization.
5. The character of the space in the housing development must intensely have a Gay identity.
6. There needs to be a plan to have the community persist into the future.
Keeping it a Gay neighborhood will be challenging. Many straight people, either as individuals or couples wouldn’t mind, and might prefer to live in a neighborhood where it is mostly Gay. The location of the housing and the neighborhood being pleasant might make it desirable to many straights, or enough straights that the neighborhood ceased to be a Gay neighborhood.
Home Owners Association
Unit ownership needs to be limited. Maximum two units. If someone for some reason an individual has more than two units, the additional units must be disposed of in at least one a year. No one individual will be allowed more than the votes for two units regardless how many they own. The home owners association needs to do what it can to have no one owning two units. Perhaps advertising, maintaining lists of prospective buyers, assisting with financing if possible.
The unit needs to be owned by a primary resident or residents. That is, it is their legal residence. The individual owning the unit needs to be identifiable, otherwise no vote will be allocated to that unit. A lawyer representing an owner or owners can only file two votes for owners maximum.
There can’t be absentee ownership. If someone buys up units, they might get enough votes to dissolve the home owners association. The dissolution of the home owners association will require two-thirds vote of all the owners.
The home owner association will have as part of their charter, the right to pay delinquent taxes on a unit, and prevent it being auctioned off by the city to the general public. Unit owners will be advised how to write their wills so that some issue doesn’t come up with the property.
The home owners association incorporation needs to consider all possible ways an investor might take to work around rules to design rules to prevent the home owners association from being dissolved if there becomes the opportunity to make a large profit with the dissolution of the home owners property.
For example distressed unit owners not being able to make payments should be offered some assistance, like the postponement of payments, so they aren’t forced to sell to some predatory investor. Some arrangement should be made that the home owners association can make an offer to purchase the unit up for sale at a bid above what might have been offered. The home owner association might keep a list of people potentially interested and contact them when a unit is for sale.
Housing and neighborhood design.
The housing units need to be built for Gays. No children’s bedroom. The space in the housing needs to be designed for Gays, though specifically what that might be the author doesn’t know. A close examination on housing space is used by Gays might prove useful to tailor the housing design more precisely towards Gay needs. Again, nothing should be taken for granted in designing the housing. Perhaps having rooms with different aspect rations, that the widths and lengths, might more accommodate Gays than straights. The sizing and shape of the room needs to be considered. There might be differences which make the housing more desirable for Gays than straights. Or the rooms might be purposely strange, so the straight public would find the houses weird, and choose other housing, but Gays desiring a Gay neighborhood would accommodate themselves to the strange rooms. The strange rooms would need to be functional or at least only slightly disadvantageous. It would be a distinctive Gay housing. Perhaps it would then need distinctive furniture. It could contribute to the housing being undesirable to straights.
How would you arrange these two rooms?
The neighborhood needs to be laid out to support social interaction and a feeling of community among the Gay residents. The housing will be dense, little or no space between housing units and facing inward to a street. If gardening space is desired, it will be facing inward to the street also. It will occupy a complete block or more. This will encourage social interactions between the neighbors and thus provide a sense of community. If the housing faces a commons area in the center, that could be a location for community activities. Having allocated garden space in a commons would be good also, in that it would provide fresh produce, and additionally bring people together.
. Having the neighborhood being bounded by the walls of the units would help with security. There would only be main entrances available to enter the neighborhood. In cases of civil disorder the main entrances could be defended more easily than trying to have a physical barrier
added around the entire neighborhood.
The top of each unit would be a patio garden type space for barbecue and socializing. Also, given the close packing of the housing, neighbors could talk to each other.
One of the chief challenges Gays face, is that being only 3% of the population, and in a society that can be hostile, meeting Gays for social or romantic purposes is challenging. The physical design of the housing, the neighborhood needs to be done to promote social interaction and a feeling of community as much as possible.
Social Services
The Gay neighborhood development needs a club room and space for Gay community activities. The neighborhood club needs a social director, even if only part time with the support of neighborhood volunteers, to develop a program of activities and events to serve the Gay community needs and build a Gay community. The activities should be specific to the needs and interests of the Gay community. What those activities might be shouldn’t be limited by what is typically done for community centers. It might be events where vaccinations are provided of particular need for the Gay community. They can also be open to the general Gay community. They can be for economic support, such as a yard sale for the community, postings of job openings, presentations on what to do if discriminated against, education on searching for jobs, composing resumes, navigating unemployment, investing for retirement. There might be group purchases of items.
The goals of the neighborhood club shouldn’t just be an accidental collection of activities, but as its goal the social welfare of the members of the Gay neighborhood, including the support of their humanity as Gay people. There can be viewing parties of Gay films or series, there can be lectures on topics of specific interest to Gays, Gay artists can have showings, Gay health activities, Gay sex education, life drawing classes, cooking classes, there might be a Gay reading room or least a place to exchange Gay materials. There can be social functions open to the general Gay community. Merchants with goods directed towards Gays could have showings of goods and services.
A crafts room would be good where people could do crafts, perhaps
a makers space would be good. It would help build community and be an added benefit.
All the events and activities could be advertised to the general Gay community providing opportunities for the residents to meet people and to provide a service to the Gay community.
One social service which would prove to be useful to preserve the neighborhood’s Gay identity would be a clothing optional pool. There might be contracted van transport service on some schedule between the neighborhood and the Gayborhood shopping and night club district. There should be participation in local Gay pride events.
This should be financed by a part of the home owners association fees. This would discourage straight people from purchasing a home, since they would be paying fees for services of no use to them. The purpose of the neighborhood and what services it would likely provide, needs to be upfront so no purchaser of the house would be surprised or lawsuit filed to destroy the home owners association.
Gay identifying the Gay neighborhood.
As much as possible, as intensely as possible, the Gay neighborhood space must incorporate a Gay identity. Fly the Gay flag. Make sure there are Gay cross walks if there are any cross walks. In the common areas have Gay art and sculptures. Give the street a Gay name such as Harvey Milk Street or Constantine Cavafy Court.
The entrances need to have some type of indicators, art, to signify that it is an entrance to a Gay space.
The Gay neighborhood should have its own social media as well as a website. The expenses of maintaining this identity will come out of the
home owners associations dues.
Pissoirs
For hiking routes or just walking routes the neighborhood should have the pissoir.
Demographically sustaining the Gay neighborhood over time.
It would be good to get a range of ages of initial purchasers of the homes. If they are all of the same age cohort there is a potential that they become identified with that age cohort so as time goes on it gets harder to interest younger Gays to move into the neighborhood as it is identified with a certain age cohort. With a mix, there will be houses coming on the market when older Gays pass away to sell to younger Gays and it will be easier to maintain a mixed age community.
The neighborhood needs to be marketed continuously to younger Gays with the neighborhood being willing to do what adaptations are necessary to keep an interest in it. The goal is to have a neighborhood which will in the future will demographically have a mix of ages.
Another risk is that over time, the rest of the Gay community not resident in that neighborhood migrates to some location in the urban environment such that the Gay neighborhood is inconveniently away from the Gay community. However, these shifts in the location of the Gay community are primarily due to their not being built Gay communities that will be stable against shifting market forces.
However, two measures would assist in avoiding the Gay neighborhood being isolated from the rest of the Gay community. Have an overall area plan to have other Gay housing projects built near the Gay neighborhood. Subsidize the construction of Gay facilities in the area. Restaurants, bars, bath houses, might be considered.
Another measure would be to have regular transportation to other Gay community locations to lessen the impact of being distant from a Gay community urban area. Have the cost of the transportation paid by the home owners association.
Conclusion
All of the above actions should make a Gay neighborhood where the members are supported and a neighborhood where market forces won’t eliminate it. There very well might be other actions which would strengthen the Gay neighborhood, but this chapter hasn’t identified. Since we tend to think of housing in terms of the existing forms of housing created for heterosexuals, there is likely important ideas that
have been over looked. This chapter is the starting point for thinking about creating Gay neighborhoods.
Having such a community would be a great benefit to its Gay residents which could look forward to being located in a Gay community over time.
CHAPTER FOUR
DESIGN OF THE DETACHED GAY HOME
Much of this could be applied to row houses and other group living arrangements also.
Again, given that we think of houses in terms of the existing houses, there are likely opportunities in designing houses for Gays that this chapter over looks. However, instead of waiting until every possibility might be conceptualized, this chapter is written so that the immediate benefits are discussed and to stimulate creative thinking.
One obvious thing about designing Gay housing is to not incorporate features that are obviously for the cycles of heterosexual reproduction.
No need for a nursery room for example. There only needs to be the primary bedroom and there doesn’t need to be children’s bed rooms.
There doesn’t need to be both a family room and living room, that is a formal room and a room that children might spend time in. There could be just a living room.
There wouldn’t need to be both a formal dining room and a breakfast room or other informal eating space.
Without children and noise there isn’t a need for a study room, the living room can work.
With fewer rooms, hallways can be shorter or not needed at all, further
saving space. The laundry room can be smaller since it is just handling two people.
The yard can be reduced to just areas for gardens, patio, and adult activities. The smaller yard, combined with the reduced number of rooms, means a much smaller lot is needed.
With just these changes, the elimination of three rooms at least, a much smaller lot, you have greatly reduced the cost of housing for a Gay couple significantly.
With fewer rooms in the Gay detached house the cost of making the house 3 or 4 story is cheaper. The expense for the extra rooms of the heterosexual house could be redirected into having a house be multistory with a deck on top and a bedroom and living room being on the 3rd and 4th floor. The house could have an elevator and dumb waiters. Maybe the house is elevated above the ground and the driveway is on the floor level beneath the house.
The multi-story house needs to have porches around each level so the owner can paint the house without scaffolding.
With the reduction of cost in one area you could add in other features. You could have a basement swimming pool. The bedroom might be quite elaborate. Maybe the hot tub is on the top of the house on the patio deck.
It isn’t anyone type of house design that makes it Gay, it is a design of a house where a large fraction of the expense doesn’t have to be used for the raising of children. You might have an astronomical observatory, a hot house 4 stories up, or you might just have a much less expensive house. It is Gay because you aren’t using up a large fraction of the housing for child rearing.
Being a single sex house and also with no children, the requirements for privacy and isolation from noise and containment of noise is less. So the arrangements of the rooms could be done without considering either noise or privacy.
Guest bedrooms could be a space that is separated from a room with sliding partition. This avoids the cost of a guest room which is mostly a room that isn’t used. It also avoids having a room that can be converted into a children’s bedroom. Similarly office rooms might be created with
a sliding partition. Perhaps rooms normally not combined might be combined. The laundry room could also have the office or have a dropdown bed for guests.
Making the office or guest rooms with an unusual shape could prevent it from being converted into a children’s bedroom. The guest room could be L-shape with the bed occupying one leg of the L. Making the guest room and office as small as possible makes the space less desirable for conversion into a bedroom.
The guest room could be designed also with no closets and have a rack for clothes in the room. Office rooms shouldn’t have a closet either.
The amount of hallway space needed even for a one-story house would be less. You aren’t having to have multiple people needing a pathway to different rooms. Or since you have fewer rooms less hallway is needed to connect rooms. Or maybe all rooms could connect to a commonly used space like the dining room.
Urinals should be in the bathrooms. They conserve water and don’t take much space.
