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The Pandemic Is Highlighting A Huge Disadvantage For LGBTQ Long-Term Care Residents

Advocates and experts say as the province looks to make desperately needed improvements to long-term care, we can’t leave behind LGBTQ seniors.
Advocates and experts say as the province looks to make desperately needed improvements to long-term care, we can’t leave behind LGBTQ seniors.

Alf Roberts died on June 2, one day after his 92nd birthday. A resident at Fudger House retirement home in Toronto for more than a decade, he embraced his time in the facility by serving in leadership roles, including president of the home’s resident’s association. His other position, though, was one only made possible after moving into the home: president of the LGBTQ group.

Roberts came out at age 80 — after he became a resident.

“They had this openness,” he told the CBC in a 2014 interview. “I could then actually come out and say, for the first time in my life, that I am gay and not worry about it.”

Alf Roberts in the 2019 documentary
Alf Roberts in the 2019 documentary

Growing up, it wasn’t safe for him to come out. As a piano teacher, he worked with children at a time when openly gay people were seen as pedophiles. In his retirement, he still loved music and the chance to meet young people, either volunteers at the home or through events such as the Buddies In Bad Times Theatre youth/elder project.

His one regret, he often said, was he’d never had a boyfriend or partner.

The day after Roberts died, his close friend leZlie lee kam, who prefers that capitalization of her name, came with gifts of chocolate and a card. She knew she wouldn’t be able to get into the home because of the COVID-19 visitor restrictions, but hoped to give them to a staff member who could bring them inside. She hadn’t been notified of his death.

Roberts was an only child whose parents died years ago, and he had no cousins. As a regular visitor, lee kam did Roberts’ shopping for him. She was part of his chosen family, she said. But the staff members who saw lee kam outside the home that day started to ask her questions: Who was she? Why was she there?

“You know who I am — I’m Alf’s friend,” she told them.

leZlie lee kam in an undated photo. She said LGBTQ residents face barriers in getting to see their chosen families in long-term care.
leZlie lee kam in an undated photo. She said LGBTQ residents face barriers in getting to see their chosen families in long-term care.

It was only after one staff member returned from his lunch break and recognized her that she learned Roberts had died the day before her visit.

“I had to speak to three or four different people,” lee kam told HuffPost...

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