Get Rochester Black Pride A Building

It's time to get Rochester Black Pride a building!!

Since the Summer of 2015, Rochester Black Pride has worked tirelessly to create safe spaces & advocate for the Black Queer & Trans community!  We started out with just a BBQ and a party as a way to bring the community together in and create spaces where folks felt safe to be unapologetically & authentically themselves! Over the years we have grown into an annual festival and continues to expand into advocacy work, community building, organizing & activism, and so much more. 

Our community, while vibrant & incredible, is currently in the midst of several crises at the same time – from the HIV epidemic that didn’t stop, the current COVID-19 pandemic, and increase of violent murders of Black Trans Women all across this country.

There's tons of data and statistics about how our community has and continued to suffer under various system of oppression and violence which impacts us on a daily basis. According to a report done by the Center for American Progress, LGBT people of color face a higher risk of suffering from poverty due to discrimination and lack of strong legal protections. In Rochester, a large number of black queer & trans people face a host of issues related to poverty including: unemployment, chronic homelessness (starting as early as age 13), and increased dropout rates. While these and other factors have a negative impact on one's quality of life, they also increase our community’s risk of HIV exposure - a new study just reported that 1 of 2 black gay men will contract HIV in their lifetime. 

So our work can never just be for one week, or just a month... we will not stop until all of our folks are free and able to live their lives to its fullest potential. Over the last few months specifically, the level of violence against Black people in general, but specifically Black Trans & Queer folks here in this city has brought to the forefront something we have known for a while - WE NEED OUR OWN BUILDING! We are not looking to rent, we are looking to OWN a building that is for us, by us!

“I need to make sure my folks have a place to sleep at night. I need to make sure they're not getting kicked out of their homes. I need to make sure that their mental health is stable. I need to make sure that they have jobs. I need to make sure that they're not in physical danger every day."
-       Gatekeeper Adrian, The Pride Divide - City Newspaper, August 15, 2018


THE BUILDING
What we are looking for:

1.     A Commercial/Mixed use building to be donated or sold to us for $1

a.     No more the ½ mile from Downtown

b.     At least 3 stories

c.     Anywhere from 20,000 – 50,000 sq ft

d.     With space for parking (negotiable)

e.     Must be ADA compliant or have room to renovate

Black Pride Center
The First floor would serve as a community & cultural center for Black LGBTQ+ life, history, an art. Ideally the space would hold some gallery space, a library, a computer lab, community closet, meeting space, dance space, and potentially event space. Really with a large enough space we can make it easily adjustable for multiple purposes.

This also affords us many opportunities to strengthen the community partnerships that we already have by collaborating on efforts to connect folks to various services & programs.

Housing
The remaining floors would be dedicated specifically to housing – a mix of emergency, temporary, and long-term housing. Ideally we are looking to have a dorm style rooms for emergency/temporary housing and looking to have 5 – 10 single units for long-term housing.

Fundraising
We are currently raising money for renovations of whatever building we do receive. Many of the structures around the city are not compliant with ADA requirements for accessibility beyond the first floor – if that much. On top of that we will need to do renovations to accommodate our housing needs.
 

It’s well overdue that the Black & Brown LGBTQ+ community had a place that we can finally call home and in this current climate, I cannot stress enough how important it is for us to get this done ASAP. We needed this building as of yesterday!  

“"Our people are dying, but they aren't just dying, our community loses track of them, they go somewhere else," Elim says. "We can't keep doing that. There is a wealth and a power and a wisdom in having community, among people of all spectrums and all ages."
-        Gatekeeper Adrian, The Pride Divide - City Newspaper, August 15, 2018

 
We hope that you will join us on this journey and help us to secure a building!


For more information about the work we have been doing, please check out our website:
www.rocblackpride.com 

City Newspaper Article: The Pride Divide:
https://www.rochestercitynewspaper.com/rochester/the-pride-divide/Content?oid=7580916