The first LGBT retirement home in Sweden

The Regnbagen, or rainbow house, opened in 2013, and it doesn’t look any different from the other modern apartments in the quiet suburb of Stockholm.

The residents occupy 27 apartments on the upper three floors of an eight story retirement home with access to various amenities such as a hairdresser, a health clinic and a roof terrace.

“We have the same activities, we live the same life and we love in the same way,” Christer Fallman, Regnbagen’s founder, told the Reuters.

“The only thing that is different is that a small minority of people who are gay can get together to find security when they are ageing.”

Sweden is one of Europe’s best countries for LGBT rights, according to an index that ranks European countries based on legal benchmarks for LGBT equality.

Such retirement homes already exist in the United States and Canada, but Fallman said he believed they could also help to eliminate prejudices in countries such as Uganda and Russia where LGBT community faces discrimination at home, at work and under the law.