Bay Area LGBTQ seniors score share in $250k funding

Bay Area LGBTQ Community Foundation has awarded an additional quarter million to fund Covid-related direct services to LGBTQ groups including our elders.

Horizons Foundation, the world’s first LGBTQ community foundation, has announced 18 Bay Area LGBTQ nonprofits as recipients of a quarter million in grants from the foundation’s LGBTQ Resilience and Recovery Fund.

These grants will fund direct services for the most underserved in the Bay Area LGBTQ community, who continue to face significant challenges in meeting basic needs during the COVID-19 pandemic.  

“These organizations act as nothing less than a lifeline for many of the most underserved in our community,” said Francisco O. Buchting, Horizons’ Vice President of Grants, Programs, and Communications. “The LGBTQ community is as resilient as ever, but the need remains vast — and targeted support is what’s needed most.”  

The grants will support several target populations with continued disproportionate need:  

• Transgender people. As one example, the Transgender, Gender-Variant and Intersex Justice Project is providing emergency housing to unhoused, Black transgender people, many of whom were formally incarcerated.  
• LGBTQ asylum seekers and refugees. For example, Oasis Legal Services is supporting low-income, undocumented LGBTQ asylum seekers in obtaining permanent immigration status and work authorization, in addition to support with non-legal needs like healthcare, housing, and job training. 
• LGBTQ people of color. Grantee partner Somos Familia, for example, is hosting a variety of virtual, Spanish-language support groups and 1:1 check-ins for LGBTQ Latinx people and their families.  
• LGBTQ seniors.Grantee partner Solano Pride Center, for instance, is providing wellness checks, counseling, food assistance, and a weekly support group to LGBTQ seniors in rural Solano County. 
• LGBTQ youth. The Rainbow Community Center of Contra Costa County, for example, is supporting unhoused LGBTQ youth by providing personal protective equipment, food vouchers, emergency housing, transportation, employment services, Internet access, clothing, and mental-health support.  
• LGBTQ Asians and Pacific Islanders. API Equality — Northern California is establishing a peer-counseling program for API transgender people, hosting a social-justice apprenticeship for LGBTQ API youth, and holding workshops and convenings focused on healing and mutual aid. 

The LGBTQ Resilience and Recovery Fund is only the foundation’s latest effort in its response to the pandemic; last year, Horizons awarded over $1 million in emergency grants to Bay Area LGBTQ nonprofits.   

View the full list of grantee partners here. 

About Horizons Foundation 

Horizons Foundation (www.horizonsfoundation.org) envisions a world where all LGBTQ people live freely and fully. The world’s first community foundation of, by, and for LGBTQ people, Horizons invests in LGBTQ organizations, strengthens a culture of LGBTQ giving, and builds a permanent endowment to secure our community’s future for generations to come. Learn more at horizonsfoundation.org.