With no debate and little discussion, the Montgomery County Council unanimously approved a $200,000 budget appropriation Tuesday to support MoCo Pride Center, the leading local organization providing social services to the LGBTQ+ community.
The council also engaged in conversations about how the county could provide more funding to support the health and wellness of LGBTQ+ residents.
MoCo Pride Center “works in an intersectional way with our underserved communities in the county through creating and supporting programs and events,” Council Vice President Kate Stewart (D-Dist. 4) said before the vote. “Our amazing Health and Human Services Department representative here has worked with MoCo Pride since 2022 to provide health screenings and other service deliveries on-site.”
The county has relied on the MoCo Pride Center to host much of its HIV and STI testing services, according to council documents. The organization administered more than 250 HIV tests at Pride Month events in May and June of 2023, according to county data. The county government also frequently refers residents to the organization as a resource.
While the $200,000 appropriation is comparatively low when it comes to county government spending, advocates said at an April 16 public hearing that the center needs the money to fund services to get through the rest of the fiscal year, which ends June 30. The organization, which does not have a physical building, promotes health, well-being and social events for the local LGBTQ+ community.
MoCo Pride Center CEO Phillip Alexander Downie said at the hearing that the organization has been “bridging the gap to provide basic necessities” for LGBTQ+ county residents. Downie told MoCo360 in an April interview that he donated his salary back to the organization last year to help fund resources.
“This is a real and present emergency. Threats of violence [toward the LGBTQ+ community] persist and are extreme,” Downie said.
The appropriation will come out of undesignated reserves in the current fiscal year 2024 budget. County Executive Marc Elrich transmitted a request for the supplemental appropriation to the council in March.
“The increase is needed because the County has identified a lack of venues, resources, and services for its diverse, multicultural LGBTQIA+ communities,” Elrich wrote in his memo. “The MoCo Pride Center, Inc. provides safe space, events and culturally specific community programing for LGBTQIA+ communities, which are essential to vital service linkages.”
While the council easily approved the appropriation Tuesday, councilmembers are also exploring additional ways to increase funding for LGBTQ+ wellness services in the county’s fiscal year 2025 budget. According to councilmembers, the only funding the MoCo Pride Center has received up to this point from the county government has been through its contracts every year with the Department of Health and Human Services to put on an annual pride festival in downtown Silver Spring in June.
Despite several recent county government reports that found that the county needs to fund more services for LGBTQ+ residents, several advocates and some councilmembers who spoke to MoCo360 last month are concerned that Elrich’s proposed $7.1 billion operating budget does not contain allocations specifically or obviously aimed at the LGBTQ+ community.
The exception is a $500,000 proposal toward creation of a Sexual and Gender Minorities Health Center that Elrich proposed when introducing his budget in March.
Elrich proposed in March that the $500,000 would come from $33 million reimbursement from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for COVID-19 expenditures the county was hoping to receive. The county has since received the money, but advocates are concerned the allocation isn’t enough.
The creation of the proposed center is a recommended outcome of a county Office of Legislative Oversight report that found stark disparities in health care access, and specifically gender-affirming care, for transgender county residents.
The report, which said the county needed to be doing more to address transgender health care disparities, specifically recommends the council address the feasibility of creating a LGBTQ+ community center in the county, which could provide resources to residents including health care services, mental health services, support groups, meeting and recreation spaces, youth-specific services, legal services, employment support and housing services.
Another LGBTQ+ community survey released to the public by the county government in October 2023 received strong support for a LGBTQ+ focused center or community space from respondents.
“I’ve often been the first call that people make in Montgomery County when a young person who is transgender or queer is kicked out of their house,” Lee Blinder, founder and director of Trans Maryland, an organization that advocates for the trans community and helps connect trans Marylanders with resources, testified at the April 16 council hearing
“I’m not paid by the county to be a 24/7 youth crisis housing responder. However, it is part of my uncompensated duties because I’m very dedicated to our young trans and queer people,” Blinder said.
An amendment proposed by the council’s Health and Human Services Committee and Government Operations Committee to the proposed fiscal year 2025 budget would allocate $500,000 to the MoCo Pride Center. However, the amendment is on a “New and Enhanced Programs” list that will have to be reconciled during the budget process, so nothing is certain until the council takes final action on the budget. The council discussed the proposal Tuesday during budget worksessions.
“I’m really hopeful about this one. This is so important, and not only have we had folks who have been volunteering their time, but this has been an expense, this has been money out of pocket for people who are the most impacted community that we’re trying to serve here,” councilmember Kristin Mink (D-Dist. 5) said during Tuesday’s work session.
According to the council agenda packet, the $500,000 appropriation would support community programming and services provided by the MoCo Pride Center. This would be an addition to a $200,000 allocation in Elrich’s budget that is slated to fund four specific community events in partnership with the county.
Councilmember Evan Glass (D-At-large) said during the work session that he’s been advocating for funding for LGBTQ+ services since he first worked on a proposed county budget, which was for fiscal year 2018.
“Members of the LGBTQ+ community have been volunteering their time to organize and provide opportunities for our residents,” Glass said. “It’s taken a little while, but the perseverance and the dedication from members of the community and the activists and the leaders manifests itself here.”
The council will take a straw vote on the budget on May 16, with final action expected on May 23. Under county law, the council must take final action on the budget by June 1.