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LA Gay & Lesbian Center announces ambitious $25 million expansion plans at last night’s gala

LA Gay & Lesbian Center CEO Lorri L. Jean always gives a rousing speech at the center’s annual gala.

This year she added some big news to her speech: The Center is embarking on an ambitious $25 million fundraising plan to pay for an expansion to be completed in 2017 or 2018.

On Oct. 25, The Center signed an agreement with the state of California to purchase property across the street from its complex known as The Village. The property on McCadden Place is currently used as a parking lot and will be transformed into ‘an LGBT campus the likes of which have never been seen before.’

It will enable The Center to expand the number of beds for homeless youth from 50 to 150 and also provide a complex for LGBT seniors to live.

The Center is working in collaboration with the City of Los Angeles and in partnership Thomas Safran & Associates – a developer of affordable housing in Los Angeles – to build a first-of-its-kind multi-generational apartment complex for LGBT youth and seniors, with a wide array of supportive programs and services.

The Center would also move its headquarters there from its current N. Schrader Boulevard location so that its clinic there can expand into a comprehensive medical facility.

‘It’s not going to be quick or cheap,’ Jean told the crowd. ‘We’ll have to launch a new capital campaign and raise at least $25 million, plus tapping affordable housing funding streams. … None of it will be easy. But the Center has never been daunted by difficult tasks in pursuit of serving our community. That’s what you expect from us.’

She showed concept drawings of what the new complex might look like but they are not final drawings. The plan is to open the new ‘innovative, trailblazing campus’ in 2017 or 2018.

Said Jean: ‘We will continue to be the world’s leading example on how to take care of our community.’

Jean is pictured with US Congressman Adam Schiff and honoree Jason Collins

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One Remark

  1. The Center could not find a better Partner for their Low Income Senior Housing Project than Tom Safran, who truly cares about the wellbeing of their tenants and manages their properties with a level of professionalism rarely found even outside the low income housing sector.

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