The 60s are when the results of all financial action - and inaction - come home to roost. What unique financial challenge faces the gay who's grey?

A Tidal Shift in Disposable Income

Gradually greying gays have the same spendable income as straights - and start to act financially with the same concerns about income in general. Age appears to be, in the end, the great equalizer.

For most gays however this is a great comedown after years of extra discretionary income. How this change impacts specific groups of gays depends on which spending persuasion they developed.

For the last of the great spenders, this could be a tallying up of time, money and opportunity spent - a presentation of the check for good times had, the worst financial hangovers.

The bottom line? If all the attributes of a financially successful life aren't already in place, grey gays need more than a financial face lift.

Survivor Guilt

Simply to survive to one's sixties is an accomplishment in many urban gay ghettos. Gay seniors have truly run a long gauntlet, especially if HIV and cancer have been left behind.

Survivor guilt is a major financial albatross for many gays to carry especially if they have done everything right. With AIDS in the picture it's hard to feel you've won at the financial game no matter what strategy was taken.

AIDS in fact may have distracted some gays from proper preparations for retirement. After decades of fighting fires and burnout, many resources may have been spent.

As with a war, dramatic financial redistributions have taken place. Some have inherited from lovers while others have retreated into careers and making money. Some have given all they had and are irretrievably behind in their financial preparations for their own lives. Nowhere is this more clear than in the 60s.

Survivor guilt must be overcome to address the central task of the 60s: income stabilization. Depending on past financial performance, this involves striking some kind of balance between paid work and non-work related income.

From the Ghetto to the Retirement Community

Before AIDS the community seemed poised to take care of its own, to redress the discrimination previously shown grey gays by their juniors. Now several generations of urban gay men are decimated. Retirement concerns no longer seem to figure much on the gay agenda except perhaps in the lesbian community.

Yet while much of rural gay America seems to have physically survived AIDS, they too are faced with the retirement decision of whether to relocate.

It is highly unlikely that the expensive and overbuilt urban ghettos and traditional gay resorts will recover soon from the thousands lost to AIDS. It had seemed that this would be the only type of locale where grey gays could gather, get medical care, and develop a new life apart from work.

At the same time, South Beach and Tampa, the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest are experiencing a surge in population. Many gay men with AIDS have made the decision to relocate in these areas and have opted out of urban violence and insult - and snow.

It is entirely possible that a byproduct of AIDS may be the development of a retirement infrastructure in these new, attractive communities. The AIDS migration is drawing medical resources, renovating housing, building community, and changing the cultural climate of these areas. It makes every bit of financial sense to follow this tide.

Perhaps this signals a shift towards rooting the Gay Communitas around the needs of its seniors first and addressing the needs of other gay generational groups from that starting point. That would certainly be a far cry from the intense gay ghettos where waves of gay youth flocked first after the war, then with the advent of Stonewall.

Financially this shift is extremely beneficial to gays in their 60s. Instead of facing retirement in a ghetto they can gravitate to newly developing communities with lower living costs, greater security, better medical resources, a wider span of generations - and better weather. These may in fact be the new geographic focus for gay community in the next millennium.