SAGE Heads to White House Aging Conference

[kweerwolf]

In an unusual effort at outreach to and inclusion of the gay community, the Bush administration has selected Terry Kaelber, executive director of Services Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender Elders, or SAGE, to be one of the panelists at the fifth White House Council on Aging Conference. Kaelber was one of about a dozen panelists selected to participate in this influential conference that will make policy recommendations intended to guide national aging policy for the next 10 to 15 years. The conference will convene in December.


SAGE, in an effort, to take a pulse of the LGBT community on issues of concern regarding aging and to provide Kaelber with a concrete list of specific policy recommendations for the conference, held a town hall meeting on September 28 at the LGBT Community Center in Manhattan.


Rebecca Hoffman, SAGE’s community organizing coordinator, facilitated the event. Kaelber, who had planned to lead the discussion, had a family emergency and was unable to attend.


“Many of the concerns of the LGBT community about aging are the same as the straight community,” Hoffman told the audience in her opening remarks. “We just have extra concerns due to discriminatory policies.”


http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn_440/sageheadstowhite.html