Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito, (fifth from left), Rep. Ayanna Pressley (third from left), Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (sixth from right), Boston City Councilors and other dignitaries celebrate groundbreaking at The Pryde, New England's first LGBTQ-focused senior housing development, in June 2022. Photo courtesy of LGBTQ+ Senior Housing Inc.

A Hyde Park senior housing development that saw its financing package upended by national politics appears to have come out on top, in the end.

The Pryde, New England’s first LGBTQ-oriented senior housing development, broke ground in June 2022. But its capital stack rested in part on an $850,000 Rep. Ayanna Pressley earmark in a package of federal spending focused on LGBTQ social services – a package stripped out of a larger piece of funding legislation last summer by Republican congresspeople upset at the idea of federal money going to support LGBT communities.

Pressley’s office announced Monday that the Boston congresswoman and Massachusetts Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey had teamed up to make sure the funding for The Pryde got included in an appropriations bill that passed the U.S. House and Senate over the weekend in a last-minute bid to avert a government shutdown.

“With the cost of housing skyrocketing and one-third of LGBTQ+ seniors living in poverty nationwide, this project will help LGBTQ+ elders in the Massachusetts 7th [Congressional District] get the affordable housing and community space they need while affirming their dignity and humanity. I promised our community that we wouldn’t stop fighting for them, and I was proud to partner with Senators Warren and Markey to reject Republicans’ cruelty and get this done,” Pressley said in a statement.

The head of The Pryde’s developer, LGBTQ+ Senior Housing Inc., thanked Pressley, Warren and Markey in a statement released by Pressley’s office.

“This Community Project Funding will help us keep our promise to our future residents, as well as to the Hyde Park community and the LGBTQ+ community of greater Boston, that The Pryde and our Community Center will be richly resourced, joyful, caring and welcoming places where our elders and the community will be embraced, supported and celebrated,” said Gretchen Van Ness. “In other words, where our elders will be home. Our community could have no better advocates than Congresswoman Pressley and Senators Warren and Markey. Congresswoman Pressley understands the critical need for LGBTQ-affirming senior housing, programs and services, and despite enormous backlash, she has never stopped fighting for The Pryde and our LGBTQ elders.”

The Pryde, which LGBTQ+ Senior Housing is developing in partnership with Penrose, will convert a 100-year-old former public middle school that’s been closed since 2015 into a 74-unit, all-affordable senior housing facility that also includes a community center for the Hyde Park neighborhood and a community center for the Greater Boston LGBTQ community. DiMella Shaffer is the architect.