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It's a bustling early afternoon at Rainbow Heights Club. The dinner crew is marinating chicken and preparing vegetables and mashed potatoes; games of Scrabble and pool are in progress; the sound of talk and laughter drifts through the halls; a support group is meeting; and several people are at the karaoke machine, singing "We are family." I'm marveling at the warmth and camaraderie among the members of this agency, which is less than one year old.

A new member comes in the door for the very first time; she approaches me with a big smile on her face, holds out her hand, and says, "Hi! I'm a lesbian and I have a major mental illness!"

I smile right back at her and say, "That's great! Come on in."

I've been the director of Rainbow Heights for three months now. What we do here is very simple, and very important: we give people like the woman I just described a place where they can simply be accepted for what they are. As Ron Hellman, MD, chief psychiatrist at Heights-Hill Mental Health Services, pointed out years ago, LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered) people who have a mental illness go through much of their lives trying to hide one part of themselves or another. This is a painful way to live. In mainstream psychiatric hospitals and clinics, they may be reluctant to disclose their sexual or gender identity-and often for very good reason.

Only recently, in 1973, did the American Psychiatric Association officially decide that homosexuality itself wasn't an illness. Mainstream care providers sometimes overpathologize anything related to an LGBT client's sexuality or gender identity. And other patients can be sources of prejudice and misunderstanding.

Meanwhile, when they're out and about in the community, LGBT people with mental illness often feel they need to hide their symptoms or diagnosis-again, unfortunately, for good reason. Although we're making some progress in fighting the stigma of mental illness, coming out in any community as someone with a diagnosis can still be difficult; misunderstanding and negative stereotypes keep many people, both straight and gay, in the closet about their illness.

Until recently, LGBT people with mental illness had no place where they could go to find acceptance, support and community-the things that most of us take for granted. A frequent side effect of living with the double stigma of being LGBT and having a mental illness is social isolation, and isolation often exacerbates psychiatric symptoms and keeps people from finding the help and support they need.

How could anybody build self esteem, self acceptance, optimism, confidence, or peace of mind when they have to go through life with one part of themselves or another hidden from the world? It's almost impossible. People need, and deserve, a place where they can go to just be themselves, share their experience, offer support and friendship, laugh together, and find the kind of acceptance and social support that makes life not just worthwhile, but precious. That's why we founded Rainbow Heights Club.

We don't offer one-on-one psychotherapy or psychiatric treatment here. Instead, we pick up where our members' individual treatment leaves off: we provide a safe and supportive environment for socializing, activities and support groups. Preparing dinner together, eating together, and pitching in to clean up afterward forms a daily ritual that turns the club into a community.

Believe it or not, our agency is virtually the first of its kind in the country. We do have some company: the Zappalorti Society, under Bert Coffman's leadership, has offered consumer-based LGBT mental health support groups for the past ten years, and in Baltimore, a club called Hearts and Ears has offered drop in support for LGBT mental health consumers three evenings a week since 1998. Rainbow Heights is government-funded, and we're open every weekday until 6 pm. There is no charge for our services, and our members don't have to have insurance or Medicaid.

In just six months, the club has grown into an active and thoughtful group of peers. We worked together to develop guidelines about the kind of behavior we'd like to see here at the club; we've started publishing a newsletter, with the help of Eric Jackson, who is our Managing Editor and was recently hired as a Peer Specialist; we've hired a staff of peer specialists, an administrative assistant and an outreach coordinator; and recently, we traveled to Albany with six club members to lobby our legislators for continued financial support for LGBT health and human services organizations across New York State. That's a lot to be proud of. But we have a lot more to look forward to. Maybe you or someone you know will be the next person we welcome through our doors. I hope so. Please tell your friends and colleagues about Rainbow Heights Club. You all deserve a safe place where you can be yourself, find support and community, and continue to recover and heal.

Rainbow Heights Club can be reached at (718) 852-2584 or rainbowheights@aol.com.