Equality House Mission: to provide a safe, comfortable, and welcoming space to serve as the social, educational, resource, and networking hub for the Pensacola area LGBT Community.

Gay Grassroots is very pleased to announce that we have moved the Equality House into a new home so that the concept of an LGBT community center, as originally envisioned by members of our local LGBT Community, can be more fully carried out. In an effort to again not get pushed off course we are forming an Equality House Advisory Team that will stay focused on the mission. Operation of the Equality House is directed and carried out solely by members of the local LGBT community who share our common goals.

We are fortunate that we were able to find a location that is ADA (American with Disabilities Act) compliant, and has what we feel will be a more flexible floor plan than at our last location. The new location is 18 South Devilliers Street, Pensacola, Florida--that is just two blocks south of Garden Street, behind Ever'man Natural Foods.

Due to the scarcity of locations that could both suit our needs and remain within a reasonable projected budget, we decided to sign a lease while we are a bit short of committed monthly pledges that will be required to maintain possession of our new home. Everyone is asked to give every consideration to supporting our new home, without increased support our community will be at risk of losing this valuable resource.

M. Paradise Photography donated photography time and photos to Equality House, providing art for the House. The objective of these photos was to capture the diversity of the community (comprised of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, questioning people and their allies) through a playful, tasteful approach, mainly using macro-photography with a rainbow element somewhere in each photo. When visiting Equality House, you can view these photos strung along the hallway wall and you can view them online here. Want to have your photo taken and added through a small donation to Equality House, or purchase a photo and have some of the proceeds benefit Equality House? Contact mparadise.photography@gmail.com for details.

With the September 24, 2010 opening of the Equality House, Pensacola became one of only six cities in the State of Florida to have an LGBT community center! Our previous home was located on North Spring Street in Pensacola. The Equality House featured a covered front porch, airy living room, intimate reading room, kitchen, and a large multi-purpose room. The house was furnished with a big screen TV, wireless internet, and large collections of books, DVDs, and board games. We were pleased to be fully compliant with The Americans with Disabilities Act. We also provided FREE rapid HIV testing, a small gift shop, announcement boards, and LGBT newsstand.

When the CDC (Center for Disease Control and Prevention) funding cycle for the GEARS (Guys Empowered And Remaining Safe), Center came to an end, downtown Pensacola was left without a rapid HIV test site. Okaloosa AIDS Support & Informational Services set out to find a way to continue to offer HIV prevention services in downtown Pensacola. Knowing that we were looking for a way to open a fully inclusive LGBT community center in downtown Pensacola, OASIS (Okaloosa AIDS Support & Informational Services) suggested a partnership that would allow HIV testing and prevention services to be housed in an LGBT affirming environment.

Together we approached The Red Ribbon Charitable Foundation with a short-term grant request, which, for a limited time would cover the costs of rent and utilities, allowing HIV testing to continue while allowing us time to launch a pledge campaign which would allow our organization to ultimately take full fiscal and operating control of the space.

This collaboration served both organizations well for our first year. On September 12, 2011, Equality House moved into our current location at 18 South DeVilliers Street, Pensacola, Florida 32502. This move was precipitated by our desire to ensure that the LGBT Community Center we had envisioned was able to continue in a manner that best served our local LGBT Community. The prior collaboration with OASIS had become unproductive as our two organizations' missions (ours LGBT focused and theirs HIV/AIDS focused) no longer fit well together as OASIS wanted to change our agreed upon method of operations toward one which would force Gay Grassroots to take a much more subordinate role rather than maintain an equal partnership. This separation will allow Equality House to move forward with its mission "To provide a safe, comfortable, and welcoming space to serve as the social, educational, resource, and networking hub for the Pensacola area LGBT Community. Operation of the Equality House is guided, operated, and funded solely by members of the local LGBT community who share our common goals."

GEARS was not an LGBT community center, it was an HIV prevention program funded by the CDC. Its sole focus was to reach young gay and bisexual men with HIV prevention messages and safer sex skills. In order to attract these young men to the intervention, social strategies were utilized at the GEARS Center. This caused some people to have the misconception that GEARS was a community center which was discriminating against anyone that was not a young male. The fact was GEARS was an HIV prevention program who was funded only to reach young men, therefore, could only spend the CDC’s money and its efforts to reach this limited population.

Since the current HIV prevention services were not being funded by the CDC, they could be offered in an fully inclusive LGBT community center. Instead of having an HIV prevention program that was mistaken for a LGBT community center, the Equality House was an LGBT community that offered HIV testing and prevention as part of its LGBT health programs.