Culture & Community | LGBTQ | Arts & Culture | New Haven Pride Center | Ninth Square
Juancarlos Soto, exeutive director of the New Haven Pride Center, at the organization's 50 Orange St. offices. Lucy Gellman Photo.
Canned goods, fresh bread, and seasonal produce to stock the food pantry. Support for monthly dinners that build community one meal at a time. Drag bingo and LGBTQ+ wellness days that fill the space with laughter. And a feeling of finally receiving city support, over a quarter century into existence.
That’s the story for the New Haven Pride Center, which would receive a first-time influx of $30,000 in Mayor Justin Elicker’s proposed Fiscal Year 2024-2025 budget. If approved by New Haven’s Board of Alders, it would mark the first time in the city’s history that the Pride Center has received a municipal line item to support its day-to-day operations.
The proposed funding comes just months after the organization officially moved to an above-ground space at 50 Orange St., the annual rent for which is $60,000. Read more about the budget here; access the full document here. The last public budget hearing is scheduled for Thursday April 18 at 6 p.m. at 165 Church St. in the aldermanic chambers.
"It's exciting to have support from the city at a time where, across the country, more and more cities are bringing in anti-LGBT legislation," said Juancarlos Soto, executive director of the New Haven Pride Center. “Seeing the city being willing to invest and put us in the budget is a big deal because of that. It's financial support for an organization that is serving the community. It allows us to expand our services. It shows that we are a welcoming city.”
Soto in the food pantry on a recent Thursday.
If approved, the funding would go toward both all-ages programming and the center’s growing food pantry, which has formed budding partnerships with Haven’s Harvest and Connecticut Foodshare. Currently, the space is a series of shelving units stocked with canned vegetables and boxed goods, jars of juice and loaves of fresh bread. With city support, staff will be able to expand those offerings, responding in real time to an ever-present community need.
The timing could not be better, Soto said. In the past four years, food insecurity has continued to rise across the city and the state, often accompanied by a stigma around asking for assistance. As the center has become more visible, the pantry has also become one of its most relied-on programs. Each week, Soto and fellow staff members prepare a number of pre-packed “go bags” with food, often distributed to people who walk in to tour the center’s new digs for the first time.
Additional LGBTQ+ programming has also continued to steadily grow, from weekly support and affinity groups and drag bingo nights to in-the-works partnerships with the city’s departments of Youth and Recreation and Cultural Affairs.
Soto said he is excited that the center will host “Pride In Balance,” the Center’s inaugural LGBTQ+ wellness fair in April. The event, which includes massage, yoga, sound bathing, and access to mental health professionals, is meant to promote self-care in the LGBTQ+ community.
“I think often as LGBTQ folks, a lot of these wellness spaces don’t feel super secure for us,” he said. “Something as simple as getting a massage, if you are an LGBTQ person, specifically if you’re a trans person, it can feel really triggering. So we wanted to provide a day where we’re providing those services, where we’re connecting the community.”
Reached for comment, Mayor Justin Elicker stressed the importance of making financial room for the Pride Center at a time when other cities across the country have continued to roll back and restrict LGBTQ+ rights, often targeting and harming young people in the process.
“The Pride Center has taken a huge step forward with its expanded space,” he said in a phone call. “Any time you move into a new space it can be challenging to make things work, especially as a nonprofit.
“Around the nation, there are many places that are actively unwelcoming to LGBTQ+ and trans people,” he added. “We want to make a statement of being a place that is accepting and welcoming to everyone.”
Aisa: “It’s a family like you’ve never had, that just accepts you as you are.”
On a recent Thursday at the Pride Center, Aisa (they declined to give their last name) said they are excited by the possibilities that increased municipal funding opens up for the space. Last August, they “stumbled upon” the center when it was still up the block, in its basement offices. It was the first time that they’d felt totally comfortable in their own skin. Not long after, they came out as trans, feeling more at home in their body than they had for almost three decades.
After that first visit, they came back. And then they came back again. And again. Since the center moved to Orange Street., they’ve come several times a week, working remotely among the bookshelves and spending time with staff like Ta’LannaMonique Lawson-Dickerson, or T’Mo, a youth services coordinator in the space. Thursday, they appeared at the front door just minutes after noon, making a beeline for the offices where new youth programming is planned every day.
“Coming here for the first time gave me the courage to be who I am,” Aisa said. “It’s a family like you’ve never had, that just accepts you as you are.”