

The planned Anita May Rosenstein Campus (Rendering courtesy of Los Angeles LGBT Center)

A housing campus for LGBT seniors and young adults to be built in Hollywood starting this year will be the first of its kind in the country.

The new complex, known as the Anita May Rosenstein Campus, will house over 200 seniors and youth, according to KPCC. The campus will also serve as the new headquarters for the Los Angeles LGBT Center—the organization behind the $100 million project—which has provided services to the community since 1969. The building is expected to be completed in 2019 at 1116 N. McCadden Place near Santa Monica Blvd., just around the corner from the soon-to-be-demolished Circus Disco, which long served as another hub for the LGBT community.

Lorri L. Jean, CEO of the Los Angeles LGBT Center, tells KPCC that the complex aims to help "the two most vulnerable parts of our community." She says that LGBT young adults comprise a disproportionate amount of homeless youth, and the new project will offer 100 beds for the at-risk youth, as well as 35 units of permanent supportive housing for young adults, ages 18 to 24, according to the project's website. Jean also says that it will provide an alternative housing option for LGBT seniors who can sometimes face discrimination in other care facilities.

The facility will also offer opportunities for the two generations to interact more, and potentially foster mentorships and friendships.

"In the LGBT community, we talk a lot about the real tragedy that comes from the lack of connection across generations within our community," Michael Adams of the national LGBT aging group, SAGE, tells KPCC. "From younger folks what we hear over and over again is they don’t know very much about the history of their community or about the history of LGBT people."



Another view of the planned Anita May Rosenstein Campus (Rendering courtesy of Los Angeles LGBT Center)

In addition to housing, the complex will feature a commercial kitchen to offer meals to the homeless, young and old, according to Curbed LA , as well as ground floor retail space. And by relocating the organization's headquarters to the facility, it will also free up space at their McDonald/Wright building in Hollywood to offer more health and medical services to both the LGBT community and anyone in need of assistance.

The name of the new complex comes from Anita May Rosenstein, heiress to the May department store chain, who gave $7 million to the center in 2014.





Editor's note: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that the housing campus will be available for teens, instead it will be available to LGBT youth, ages 18 to 24. We apologize for the error.