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A Place for LGBTQ+ Residents to Thrive
When Ed Gardner first came out as gay, he struggled with gaining acceptance. “When you are a young person and confused, it’s hard. I just turned away,” says Gardner, GRI, broker-owner of Gardner Real Estate Group in Portland, Maine.
He empathizes with individuals who need a fresh start, having quit high school at age 17 to go out on his own as a businessperson. Ambitiously, as a teenager, he bought a property at 12% interest, got his real estate license and opened his own company.
As an adult, he became an advocate for gay equality and, in 2014, he founded the Equality Community Center as a collaborative work-place for 18 non-profit organizations that support LGBTQ+ communities.
“Every Mainer deserves the right to live their authentic life, free from discrimination, hate, violence or prejudice, and the ECC strives to provide a safe, welcoming and inclusive physical space for our community to gather, to connect with each other, and to engage with the organizations working on their behalf,” he says.
To help several organizations that couldn’t afford to pay rent and utilities at their offices, Gardner offered them space in his own office building at reduced rents. As more and more groups wanted to come in, a bigger building was needed. So, he helped with the acquisition of a 20,000-square-foot building by brokering the deal and not taking a commission. He galvanized the ECC board to steward a $1 million individual donation and made his own personal contribution of $250,000.
He also chaired the renovation committee, selecting and interviewing contractors and oversee-ing the work, and brought in an additional $3.8 million through a capital fundraising campaign.
One ECC volunteer, Skip Brushaber, sought out community support at ECC two years ago following the death of his life partner and spouse. “It was like coming home,” says Brushaber, who volunteers as a greeter and attends the monthly dinners for the LGBTQ+ elders.
The three-level ECC building includes an accessible shower, social areas, a thrift store, meeting and event spaces, an art gallery, a lending library, and more. Gardner’s next focus is the construction of an adjacent $15 million, 54-unit low-income housing building for ages 55 and older. The project is slated to break ground in October and will be completed in 2026.
Being an agent who is a REALTOR® has helped Gardner accomplish good with the ECC and even more organizations. “We raised $100,000 from our local [real estate professionals] in one event,” he says. “It warms my heart that they showed up, and some of them were my biggest competitors. We took off our
[real estate] hats and put on our community hats.