Orientation for New Members

Welcome to EPSG!

You are joining a group of eager volunteers made up of 2SLGBTQ+ individuals and allies who have come together over the last decade with ideas, passion, and commitment to find ways to push initiatives and policies that address barriers around services, activity centres, and housing for the growing population of older 2SLGBTQ+ residents and allies in the Edmonton area.

Vision:

Our vision is ambitious: To create safe, inclusive, and supportive spaces that will improve the quality of life and support the older 2SLGBTQ+ community and allies in the City of Edmonton and region. We do this through research and evidence (environmental scans, surveys, focus groups and community discussions, interviews, professional expertise) as well as building on our collective experience. We envision an urban environment free from the social stigma, fanatical prejudice, toxic fear, and extreme bullying that severely harmed many queer people growing up in mid-20^th century Canada. We envision an urban environment in which older 2SLGBTQ+ residents and allies can lead authentic lives without anxiety and without the fear of “going back into the closet”.

Programs and Projects:

We articulate policy and operational concerns that impact older 2SLGBTQ+ adults in the areas of education and awareness, health promotion, recreational and social activities, government services at all levels, congregate housing, independent living, and aging in place. Our focus is always on facilitating a sense of older 2SLGBTQ+ community. Since our first open survey in 2014-2015, which focused on service and housing needs, we have developed a solid record of project funding grants from City of Edmonton and Government of Canada community programs that we use to engage outside expertise and resources for our proposals and plans.

Our major program areas are education and awareness for residents, staff, and leaders in more than 30 local seniors-serving organizations and services; and our seniors housing project. Key initiatives to date are:

• The Aging with Pride series, now in its fourth year of programming, is archived for public access on You Tube at Aging with Pride [https://www.youtube.com/@edmontonprideseniorsgroup2676/playlists]
• A tri-city partnership with Saskatoon and Winnipeg queer agencies to develop programs to reduce isolation and loneliness
• Consultations with professional groups, government officials, and the former Alberta Seniors Advocate
• Creation of a dedicated website for EPSG at https://www.epsg.ca/ and publication of an EPSG Newsletter
• The seniors housing development project.

Several “Overview” documents provide further background information: Overview of Key Housing Project Documents;  Overview of the Joint Venture Agreement between EPSG , Right at Home Housing Society, and Garneau United Assisted Living Place; and,  Development of Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQ+ Community.

2SLGBTQ+ Seniors Housing Project:

The most ambitious initiative undertaken to date by EPSG is the development and financing of an inclusive 2SLGBTQ+ seniors housing project. This project was prompted by a question almost all 2SLGBTQ+ seniors eventually face as their circumstances change with age – a question that other (non-queer) seniors never have to consider in thinking about their own futures: “If I move into a seniors facility, will I be forced back into the closet either for my own safety or because of external pressures?”

We envisage a 60+ unit mixed-income rental apartment facility for independent living that is inclusive, safe, welcoming, affordable, and sustainable; eligible for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation support; strives for a sense of home and ‘community’; and meets a core need currently unaddressed in the City. We have educated ourselves on the types of building designs, features, amenities, and programming that will make it a community success. The Seniors Housing Prospectus, Dec. 2020, is the result of these myriad considerations.

Status and Functioning:

EPSG is a self-organizing group of volunteers who bring remarkably diverse occupations, experiences, and life skills to our activities. Originally started by Michael Phair and Sherry McKibben in 2013, EPSG was registered under the Canada Not-for-Profit Corporations Act in Jan. 2022, and operates as the Edmonton Pride Seniors Group Society under By-laws formally adopted in Dec. 2022. Currently we function as a policy and management board of the whole, supplemented by a three-person formal board that acts as legal signing authority. We hold monthly meetings on the 1^st Monday of the month, with written agendas and minutes. Currently, we offer a hybrid format – both in-person meetings, held at SAGE, and also via ZOOM. For the most part, our meetings are conducted informally through consensus-building, without a felt need for formal parliamentary rules. Our public website is found at www.epsg.ca.

What we are looking for in new members is active participation in meetings and in current programs and projects, as well as bringing new ide as to the table for discussion and identifying potential new members.

Key Partners:

To advance EPSG program and project goals, we work and partner with:

• SAGE: EPSG has benefited richly over the past decade from the gracious support of the Sage Seniors Association, a multi-service non-profit charitable organization offering over 100 programs and services to older Edmontonians. The Association provides EPSG with meeting space, receives EPSG grant funding, and manages our financial accounting. This relationship has been instrumental in enabling EPSG to secure modest but extremely valuable grant support for many of its projects.

• Pride Centre of Edmonton: EPSG has developed a close working relationship with the Pride Centre, which has provided staff and resources for our Aging with Pride program.

• Right At Home Housing Society: EPSG has also benefited enormously from consultations and partnership with the Right At Home Housing Society, a non-profit charitable organization with 30+ years building and owning hundreds of mixed-income affordable housing units. In addition to responsibility for the design and construction of the apartment facility, RAHHS will work with EPSG in a Capital Campaign to raise community funds to support the project. Further, RAHHS has a CMHC seed funding no-interest loan for the project start-up and will seek a CMHC-insured mortgage for the construction and long term financing of the project. EPSG signed a Joint Venture Agreement with RAHH in the summer of 2023.

Prepared by Alvin Schrader, Blair MacKinnon, and Michael Phair

Fall 2024