Gay Families Find the Bronx Is a Place to Call Home

[we've been meaning to post this item for a week - here it is!]

Julian Rodriguez, left, and his partner, Joel Jusino, at a relative’s home with
Mr. Rodriguez’s daughters Leanne, 9, left, and Julie, 11.

For Julian Rodriguez, it was never a question: He has lived in the borough since he was 3. “I feel more comfortable because the demographic is more what I’m used to, with my neighbors playing dominoes and the Spanish music,” said Mr. Rodriguez, who has two daughters from a previous marriage. “I feel like I’m at home with my culture.”

There may be as many reasons for same-sex couples to settle in the Bronx as there are same-sex couples there — almost 3,000, according to a demographic snapshot by the Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation Law and Public Policy at the University of California, Los Angeles. Forty-nine percent of those couples have children. Many said they chose the Bronx for similar reasons as their straight neighbors: affordability, space, racial affinity, familiarity.

Read the whole article on the New York Times.