As Pride celebrations take place across New York, local LGBTQIA+ organizations say the party atmosphere masks a harder reality: demand for services is rising while the funding behind those programs grows more complicated.<\/p>\n
At the Pride Center of the Capital Region, President Deb Vincent said community and corporate support have kept the organization on steady ground.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re right on target for money. And none of that comes from grants. It\u2019s all private donations and corporate sponsors,\u201d Vincent said.<\/p>\n
Those donations fund more than parades. The Pride Center uses its budget to support mental healthcare and direct services for LGBTQIA+ residents, including youth programming in areas where few options exist.<\/p>\n
Newer groups are feeling the pressure more sharply.<\/p>\n
Collar City Pride in Troy launched in 2023 and remains entirely volunteer\u2011run. Founder and Executive Director Meagon Nolasco said the group\u2019s case\u2011management program, which connects people to affirming healthcare and other services, has seen a sharp increase.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had five clients last year,\u201d Nolasco said. \u201cI have already this year seen three times that amount of clients since January.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nolasco said the organization relies on a mix of local grants, donations and Pride sponsorships, enough to keep basic programs going, but not enough yet to hire staff or open a permanent space, even as more people arrive from out of state seeking a safer environment.<\/p>\n
Other organizations depend heavily on federal dollars.<\/p>\n
The Albany Damien Center, which provides housing and support for people living with HIV and AIDS, has been watching closely as the Trump administration moves to rewrite federal diversity, equity and inclusion rules and reshape housing policy.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Housing is healthcare,\u2019\u201d Executive Director Perry Junjulas said. \u201cNow they want to eliminate any type of housing first, any type of harm reduction. We look for ways to reduce the harm that is happening through those.\u201d<\/p>\n
Junjulas said proposed changes could force the Damien Center to convert long\u2011term supportive housing into time\u2011limited transitional units, potentially capped at two years.<\/p>\n
\u201cDo I fill the spots in anticipation of this, or do I tell people, \u2018You\u2019re only gonna have two years, and then you\u2019re going to be homeless again if you don\u2019t find something or someone to live with?’\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The uncertainty, Junjulas said, pulls time away from serving clients and fuels fears about what happens if federal rules shift again.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really fear what the results are going to be,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to be here fighting.\u201d<\/p>\n
Vincent said the Pride Center is also prepared to make hard choices about where money comes from.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will never, ever denounce people in the community for money,\u201d Vincent said. \u201cSo if it goes away, someone else is going to have to fill it in.\u201d<\/p>\n
Spectrum News 1 reached out to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which oversees federal funding for housing services like those the Damien Center administers, for comment. The department did not immediately respond.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Pride celebrations take place across New York, local LGBTQIA+ organizations say the party atmosphere masks a harder…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":863337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5122],"tags":[40737,5229,13565,40736,405,403,17050,50,5226,5225,5228,5227,80,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,5284],"class_list":["post-863336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york","tag-albany-capital-region","tag-america","tag-app-local-state-politics","tag-corey-james","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-new-york-state","tag-news","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkcity","tag-ny","tag-nyc","tag-politics","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa","tag-vod"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116739912976425543","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=863336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}