Hello from Baehr and Curadh, a podcast from the Land of Awes Information Services.
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This is episode 135 of the Baehr and Curadh Podcast.
We're going to talk about Stonewall Bridge.
David Nimbins, aged 68, is developing a model where younger gays live with and care for older
gays in exchange for inheriting their property.
That sounds really angry.
Me?
Yeah.
Oh, did I mean to sound angry?
Hmm.
Okay, do you want me to read it again?
No.
Okay.
What do you think about this idea?
I think it's a good idea.
I think so too.
Especially for some of the points we're going to bring up.
But I think it's a brilliant idea, because like we're going to talk about, a lot of older
gay people don't have significant others or family.
So, they need care.
So why not?
Yeah.
Stonewall Bridge is a national model where younger gays people live with and care for older
gay people in exchange for not only a salary but a chance to earn equity in the older person's
home.
For now, the project is nested in New York City, non-profits, Stonewall community, development
corporation in New York City.
I guess New York City publicly has the resources and the mass quantity of people needed
to find enough individuals to put something like that together.
Yeah.
I think the community is too small, in Wichita, to do something like that.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
But bigger cities.
But you could probably set that up yourself.
Hmm.
Probably.
You'd probably want some attorneys involved.
Yeah.
I think they'd have to be so vetted.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, you would not want to trust your home and your life to some of some shyster.
Some trick out twink or, you know what I mean, little, yeah, you know what I mean, I could
see like somebody who abuses drugs doing that and coming in and stealing someone blind.
But heterosexual people have things like that all the time, which usually the richer ones,
somebody, befriends, an older richer person and says here, I'll help you take care of
your life and eventually takes over completely.
Didn't something like that happen with Richard Simmons?
There's speculation, there's no, like, proof of it yet.
There's been speculation for years that's been going on.
They think people were worried about his well-being because he just disappeared and there's
people around him that think they have rather nefarious.
Hmm.
I remember Nichelle Nichols do you know who she is?
That's name sounds familiar.
She played Lieutenant of Uhura on Star Trek and in her last years there was some allegations
of financial abuse with her housekeeper.
That's so sad.
And when people need other people to be nice, like I always said, I'd be nice.
It's sad, but I wonder how true it was, because the people who were making the allegations
were family members who would have financially gained by…
So, inviting lying, she's stealing my inheritance.
Yes.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And you never know unless you're part of it.
So, there's always three sides of each other.
Every situation is totally different.
There's one side and the other side and there's a truth, so that's sad though.
And I don't know how well that would work for us.
It would be nice to have somebody here who could clean.
Yeah.
Because we just don't have the strength to do it.
The strength or energy to do it.
Yeah.
Maybe it's something we should look into as getting a maid service.
Hmm.
Yeah.
Like once a month or something like that or get paid for a deep clean and then have like
a mate service coming like maybe once or a few weeks until a little dust up.
It'll cost a lot.
It'll also be nice to have like a handyman who could just, neither one of us is very good
at it.
You just want a little bear to run around the house and ensure it off and take care of things?
Definitely not.
(laughs)
A nice little cub to run around and take care of things for you.
We can't hire a pool boy because we don't have a pool.
No.
So, but yeah, we have something we should look into possibly.
And or possibly move to a location where you can have several older couples like that who
could split the costs of hiring somebody.
Kind of like a little commune type of thing.
Yeah.
That's a good idea too.
You put a lot of thought to this, aren't you?
Well, I came across this and I thought it was a good idea.
Yeah, it's a good idea.
I'm sure it could have problems or any system has problems.
Possibly do it like they do at my work.
Everyone at my work is deathly afraid of audits.
Everybody does their job and they do their job exactly to the letter because they know
at any time, they could be audited.
And whenever you're doing work for somebody else, I think you should kind of have that threat
hanging over you.
Okay.
I mean, because by themselves, people are no damn good.
Okay.
You have to force them into being good.
That's sad to say, but like continue to agree with that with this desire.
I think the ones who would agree with it the most are the lawyers because they see.
Yeah.
You see, there's a back end of it, but no, yeah, I agree with you.
Let's move on.
Because of AIDS in the 1980s and 90s, many gay men didn't think they would live to retirement
age and many didn't.
That's just sad.
I'm sorry, sad, but I mean, that's me when you get diagnosed with AIDS, it was a death
sentence, and we went to Gay Pride here and Dr. Sweet was talking about, she was on stage
talking about how when she first started practicing how the first thing, she would do is hand
people hospice paperwork as soon as they came into our office because she knew within six
months they would be dead, can I can't imagine doing that work to help being a social worker
in her office, social work to be so depressing or a doctor, I mean, you're meeting people that
you know, you're looking at death, it's just the matter of, I mean, obviously you're looking
at death every time you run into people, but, but, you know, I know that depression, I saw
that.
And you saw all of that, you went as all this, so that's depressing to me, so I'm sorry.
There was a, I had a bulletin board system, which was a new thing back then, the bulletin
boards were connected across the country and Act Up used our system as a way of communicating.
So, there were, there was like private email, but there were also open boards where they
would consider, you know, the actions, political actions, they were going to do direct actions,
they were going to do the reasoning and whatever.
And so many people were saying, this is a death sentence for me, I have nothing to lose.
So, you know, I will lay down in the subway and stop traffic for attention because I'm going
to die anyway.
Yeah, this is the end of the road, it's sad, it's very sad, it's depressing, it's tragic.
And tragic that we had to take it upon ourselves to get something done in the government was
not going to do anything.
Nothing at all whatsoever, which is sad commentary on the society.
Now that same generation is facing new challenges as they age, especially for people who didn't
think they were going to age, completely unprepared for it.
I remember people saying, if I, if I'm diagnosed with AIDS, what I'm going to do is I'm going
to sign up for every credit card, I can get my hands on because I'm going to die soon
and how are they going to collect?
Oh really?
I imagine being saddled with that when the cure come, or at least when the treatments come
out.
Yeah.
I bet there was a lot of bankruptcies.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, the big, sadder die.
I mean, then the treatment's got to be outrageously expensive too.
I believe part of the Affordable Care Act is, those medicines have to be paid for.
Oh really?
Oh yeah.
Okay, that's good.
So, the insurance has to cover them?
Yes.
Oh good.
Well, what happens if you don't have insurance though?
Um.
Screwed.
Um, that, I'm not an expert on this, so I should probably shouldn't be talking, but I believe
that those are zero copay things.
Okay.
So, no matter what you're paying for your insurance, you don't have to pay for HIV medicine.
Okay.
Good.
That's really good.
I'm maybe totally wrong about that, but that's the impression I get.
Okay.
Alright.
A lot of gay men have new children to look after their best interest in their golden years.
Yeah.
I'd say most of them.
Yeah.
We know a few people who have kids, but not many.
Mm-hmm.
It's not that common.
Mm-hmm.
You know what I mean?
It's different.
We certainly don't.
Um.
We get together way too late.
Yeah.
Who would have the energy to choose that, or certainly not either one of us now?
Yeah.
Not at our age.
No.
I mean, I'm the same for a bunch of old funny dummies, but we would be wiped out.
If we met in our 30s, maybe.
Yeah.
We met.
Yeah.
We met too late.
Probably 10, 15 years too late.
If we met in our 30s, we probably wouldn't have liked each other.
I'd really like you now.
Teasing, I love you.
I'm glad I can make you laugh, though.
So.
The point of this is, um, there's not only nobody to take care of them, there's nobody
to inherit their homes.
So, uh, Stonewall Bridge is a good idea.
So, these places don't go empty or vacated.
Uh-huh.
Basically.
I mean, if you die and you have no, no children, um, there's the state coming and seize it?
I'm sure if there was no executor, the state would probably provide one.
And probably their salary would come out of the estate if there was one.
I think, um, that's the, that's the next point on here.
They also have no one to leave their assets too in their will.
Um, I, instead of the state and the government came on my, my, my, what I, I, I, I don't
need it.
So, I would have a will where I would, like any local charity, I would donate everything
that I had.
Yeah.
So unknowingly you've moved on to the next point, we're going to, we're going to finish this
quick.
So sorry.
It didn't mean to.
Most of the larger gate organizations will pay a lawyer to draw up a will for you in exchange
for turning over your estate after death.
Okay.
I know the Human Rights Campaign Fund has that, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force
Force, has it, um, if your city, state, county has a gay organization, they probably will
provide that service for you.
Really?
Hmm.
So, your estate will go, you know, to a good cause and not just be taken by the government, the
government.
That's good.
That's really good.
Stonewall Bridge is a new project just getting organized.
They have no legal foundation yet.
And I can see that that's, um, I understand they have a benefactor or what do you call
it about when, um, trustee, when, um, law firm says they will work pro bono, what do you
call that?
Is that a benefactor?
A benefactor, I think, I'm not sure, but there is a large law firm that said they would
do, um, to legal work for them.
Okay.
So, there's problems in that that organization can't do, um, anything outside of the city,
and they can't do different kinds of legal things and whatever, but, um, there's a place
to start.
Okay.
That's good.
It's, well, it's places like you say, it's a place to start.
I doubt that either one of us would live long enough to join any kind of thing like
that.
Yeah, I doubt it would get going quick enough.
Yeah.
By the time we would need it, we would use it, yeah, probably.
So, if we were to do something, we would have to do it ourselves.
Yeah.
Well, I don't mean all the resources to do the background and all that stuff though.
Mm-hmm.
We don't.
And I'm not sure about the house.
I think the house is in the family trust...
It's true.
Yeah.
Your mom would freak out.
Yeah, your mom would freak out.
Your sister, can you imagine?
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
That would go for like a fart in the church.
Sorry.
All right.
It was the last point on here.
There's a questionnaire available on their website that will allow them to assess the
needs.
Okay.
I haven't done the questionnaire yet because I would expect that there's quite a few
questions that I would have to research and I don't have the time to sit down and do that yet.
If you want to know where their website is, of course, you can search Google for Stonewall
Bridge or you can go to our web page for this episode and click the link there.
Okay.
That's good.
There's a lot more detailed information there than--
Okay.
Yeah, so I urge everyone to go listen to it there.
Everyone, everyone, that's funny.
All right.
Well, do you have a joke for us this week?
Did you notice we didn't have a joke last week?
Yes.
Why was that?
I didn't notice it until after I had already published the episode.
So--
That's it.
You're fired.
No joke last week.
You're fired.
Do you know what kind of gay men want you for your brain and not for your body?
I don't know.
This is going to be terrible.
You're going to say none and they all want you for your body.
Yeah, I'm pretty much. Zombies.
Pretty much, yeah.
That would explain the gay community.
All right.
Brains.
Brains, yeah.
Most of the gay community it's DICK.
We hope you liked episode 135 of the Baehr and Curadh Podcast.
This is Baehr.
And Curadh.
Bye.
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You have been listening to the Baehr and Curadh Podcast, a production of the Land of Awes
Information Services. We can be contacted via email using the address podcast@awes.com
and Awes is spelled A-W-E-S.
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