A presentation of the newly released LGBT Community Needs Assessment study drew LGBT community leaders from around the city to Howard Brown Health Center June 27.
The study, which was conducted by the Morten Group and paid for through the LGBT Community Fund of the Chicago Community Trust, compiled information from approximately 2,000 LGBT Chicagoans.
After months of anticipation from local groups, the results the study have been released to the community. According to researchers, the study offers a snapshot of LGBT Chicago not seen in nearly a decade.
Among the top issues facing LGBT Chicagoans are access to healthcare, unemployment and underemployment, access to government rights and services, discrimination and safety. (Windy City Times previously reported on the results of the study in-depth at: www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/Looking-at-the-Needs-Assessment-data-results-/38395.html . )
The study combines information obtained through surveys, data cards, focus groups and interviews.
Community leaders discussed the study results with Mary Morten, president of the Morten Group, Keisha Farmer-Moore, the principal investigator on the study and Jim Alexander, co-chair of the LGBT Community Fund.
Among other things, the assessment showed that Chicago's LGBT population is spread across the city, that a larger number of LGBT Chicagoans are single and that both youth and seniors feel age discrimination within the LGBT community.
"In Chicago, it feels there is an age restriction to being gay," said one respondent, according to Farmer-Moore.
The study also concluded that the majority of LGBT people rank access to healthcare as a major concern, a fact that was true across racial categories.
Farmer-Moore and Morten encouraged attendees to think about additional ways to analyze the data and said that future assessments may be done in order to fill gaps in the first. Community leaders suggested that a lack of youth participation under age 18 as well as the absence of questions related to disability and domestic violence might be shortcomings in the study.
The assessment results will be used to determine one million dollars in funding initiatives from the LGBT Community Fund. Advocates are currently raising those funds. According to Alexander, approximately $250,000 has already been raised.
The LGBT Community Needs Assessment can be accessed at: www.lgbtfund.org .