As New York’s economy continues to falter, Pride Center relocates services

Due to budget cuts in Albany and limited funding locally, Pride Center of Western New York, Inc. will be reducing its hours, reducing staff, and relocating its services in 2009. Our last day under our current operating schedule was Friday, December 19, 2008. We will be closed until January 5, 2009. After this time, there will only be public access to the Pride Center facility located at 18 Trinity Place Monday through Friday, 1-5pm, and on Tuesday evenings, 5-9pm.

These cuts come at a time when our services are needed more than ever, but state, local, and private funding for PCWNY has been reduced by nearly two-thirds in 2009 and these reductions simply do not allow us to continue to operate our facility at full capacity. So we have reduced our hours of operation by nearly two-thirds, from 60 hours per week to 24. Our board of trustees, staff, and representatives from the Community Advisory Council met October 21, 2008 to make this important decision in order to preserve our organization and the vital health and human services that we provide to our clients and community members.

Sometime in early 2009, PCWNY will also be relocating its offices and programs to the historic Roanoke Arms Building located at 206 South Elmwood Avenue. By sharing a facility with our community partners—including AIDS Community Services, Alianza Latina, Regional AIDS Inter-faith Network (RAIN), and Evergreen Health Clinic—PCWNY will be able to deliver its services more effectively and to accomplish its mission and goals in the future. The David Bohnett CyberCenter will not re-open until we are at our new location and will operate Tuesday through Thursday, 1-5pm, with Mondays reserved for seniors (50+) and Fridays reserved for youth (18-24).

We will continue to provide health, mental health, legal, and other referrals; continue our tradition of providing discussion groups; and continue to provide a voice and face to the LGBT communities of Western New York through outreach, advocacy, and education. While this is a shift in direction for our agency and the communities we serve, we look forward with hope that the changes will allow us to better serve those in need, better advocate on behalf of our community, and better respond to an uncertain economy.

We will provide assistance in relocating many of the groups who have come to call the Pride Center home over the past five years and to identify appropriate alternatives for their meeting space requirements. We will continue to accommodate several groups whose meeting schedules and times adhere to our limited space and new hours of operation. We are sure that every group will find an open, affirmative space to call home in the future, and will work continually to assist in building the capacity of their organizations to succeed.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact our staff by phone: 852-PRIDE or email: proudones@pridecenterwny.org. Thank you again for support of Pride Center of Western New York.

—bryan whitley-grassi