What are gay retirees to do? An estimated 10,000 LGBT Americans reach retirement age each week. They live alone at twice the rate of their hetero counterparts, most don’t have social support from children, and few mainstream retirement centers are gay friendly. Although many queer seniors want to live on their own or already have well-established social circles, others are looking for a likeminded community.

In Seattle, some gay seniors have found Washington Terrace, owned by the behemoth nonprofit developer SHAG—the Senior Housing Assistance Group.

69-year-old Hugh Charest is one of them. A former nurse for the US Army and Group Health, Hugh is part of an emerging generation of gay retirees who refuse to go back in the closet—historically the norm for gays and lesbians who want to make friends in an elder community. His ex-lover is dying with brain cancer at Bailey-Boushay House. His nephew wants Hugh to move in with his wife and 11-month daughter in Lake Stevens. But Hugh’s not having it: “I wouldn’t live that far away from this city for nobody.”

Still, he is lonely. “I get home around 7 p.m. and sit here,” he says in his one-bedroom apartment on First Hill. “That never was normal for me. I think I’d be a lot more active if I had people do things with.”

To accommodate folks like Hugh, retirement centers for gays and lesbians are proliferating around the country – in Arizona, California, Florida, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas, and Washington, D.C – but there are none in Washington State.

Instead, Hugh has found a retirement community in the International District that welcomes gays and lesbians. The first time Hugh visited Washington Terrace he met a couple other gay men. Later, a tenant’s son told him that one of the floors had 13 gay men living on it. Last Thursday, he signed the paperwork to lease his new apartment.

“There’s a gay population nearby and we’re affordable,” explains SHAG’s Executive Director Bill Fenner. Washington Terrace perches over Elliott Bay on the steep hill at 7th Ave and Yesler St. The building was finished less than a year ago and Hugh got one of the last 10 available apartments. 136 units, all guaranteed to never become condos, are rented to persons with limited income, who are disabled and over 55 or fully abled and over 65. It is one of two most recent additions to SHAG’s growing empire.

Since 1988 SHAG has constructed 34 buildings comprising 3300 units in Western Washington, all designated for retirees, making it the state’s largest provider of affordable senior housing. Lately, Fenner says, “We’ve been concentrating in the Seattle area.” Another construction, set for Highland Park, is slated to have three buildings with 449 apartments. And an illustration of another massive SHAG development in Lake City is shown after the jump. In lieu of gay retirement centers, these communities in the city, with their progressively minded straight residents, could be the future of gay retirement in Seattle.

Cedar Park in Lake City will be completed in 2008.

Hugh’s new apartment has never been lived in, yet, despite his enthusiasm for the building, the unit is drab—you’ve never seen so many shades of taupe. The carpet, the cabinets, the counters, the tiles… all hues of a catfish. But the building’s social amenities are what makes it most attractive. “So many senior centers are just retirement centers. This one has spaces where you can do things with people,” he says.

Poker chips and board games fill a cabinet in the craft room, which, with its bright plastic furniture, looks more like an Ikea pre-fab kids room than a old-folks’ facility. Down the hall from Hugh’s unit is the media room. A massive flatscreen television that would stir jealousy from a college student sits before banks of leather recliners with built-in drink holders. Framed posters for Gone with the Wind and Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein add a touch of yesteryear. Behind the couches are two computers with Internet access.

At $1000 a month, the two-bedroom apartment at Washington Terrace is approximately the same amount as his apartment on First Hill. “It’s about the same cost in the long run,” say Hugh. “It’s no big deal.”

To my eye, most SHAG buildings are ugly and appear cheaply constructed (though Washington Terrace, with its orange steelworks that reflect the cargo cranes on the waterfront, fits with its surroundings). Here's a typical SHAG building in Kirkland.

Although I usually dismiss such cookie-cutter developments as temporary eyesores, they offer a home and community to people like Hugh. He’s moved three times since he had a stroke in 2003, and his doctor recommends he gets both knees replaced next year. He doesn’t want to move again: “I hope to stay here till I die.”