Guest post: Lois Uttley, Director, Raising Women’s Voices – NY

All this week, HCFANY’s LGBT Task Force has been sponsoring events to reach uninsured LGBT New Yorkers with information about how to get enrolled in an affordable health insurance plan before the Feb. 15 deadline of open enrollment through the NY State of Health Marketplace.

An event on Tuesday in Jackson Heights, Queens, highlighted the fact that this is also national Latino outreach and enrollment week, and underscored the particular challenges facing LGBT New Yorkers who are also immigrants. The event was held at Voces Latinas, a NYS-certified Navigator agency that partners with the LGBT Community Center to serve the many Spanish-speaking LGBT people who live in Queens.

“Within New York City, LGBT individuals are disproportionately uninsured. These numbers increase when we factor immigration status and language barriers,” explained Nathaly Rubio-Torio, Executive Director of Voces Latinas. “Our navigators are bilingual, bicultural and fully culturally competent.”

Rubio-Torio (at left in photo) was joined at the event by (left to right in photo) NYC Council Member Danny Dromm, who represents Jackson Heights and is a member of the Council’s LGBT Caucus; Luis Scaccabarrozzi, Director of Health Policy and Advocacy for the Latino Commission on AIDS; Alexander Cortes, an enrollment specialist with Voces Latinas; and Lois Uttley, Co-Chair of HCFANY’s LGBT Task Force (not pictured).

Another of the organizations participating in this week’s events also has a special mission of serving LGBT immigrants. Make the Road NY is sponsoring an LGBT information and enrollment event this Friday night, January 16, from 6 to 8 p.m. at its 301 Grove St. Brooklyn office.