With summer around the corner, Palm Beach County officials have denied a federal grant to fix the air conditioning where South Florida’s oldest LGBTQ nonprofit operates, citing a recently approved anti-LGBTQ+ state law.
County housing officials rejected Lake Worth Beach’s $308,000 request to fix or upgrade the air conditioning systems and elevator at Compass Community Center’s headquarters due to a Florida law against “diversity, equity and inclusion” taking effect in 2027. Gov. Ron DeSantis signed the legislation into law on April 23.
Commissioner Sarah Malega was livid about the grant denial for the city-owned building that Compass rents at Dixie Highway and Second Avenue North.
“It shouldn’t matter who our tenant is in a building. It’s a city-owned building,” she said. “And the fact that this deep dive was done into who was in the building — I’m a little appalled, but not shocked, unfortunately.”
Lake Worth learned no money for AC project day after law signed
Palm Beach County could not approve federal Housing and Urban Development money “to the proposed Compass Center renovation due to State legislation which was just enacted,” Carlos Serrano, the county’s deputy housing and economic development director, told city public works director Jamie Brown in an email on April 24, the day after DeSantis signed the law.
Brown was interim city manager when the city asked for the share of the county’s HUD money. He left the position April 21 to go back to serving as public works director.
Serrano sent Brown the legislation as an explanation. The law, which passed the Republican-dominated state Legislature over objections from Democrats, prohibits local governments from adopting, promoting or funding programs or policies involving diversity, equity and inclusion.
The bill defined that as influencing or enforcing workplace practices which provide special privileges based on race, ethnicity, gender identity or sexual orientation.
The law allows residents to sue their local government if they believe it is violating the law.
Neither Serrano nor Alessandra Tasca, his supervisor, said in their email to Brown which part of the new law the county feared violating by granting the city the money to fix up its building.
City Commissioner Mimi May on April 28 asked if the city could “pay for the air conditioning this year, and not have to wait for next year, so they don’t die and they can do what they need to do?” Compass should not be punished for either “our lack of maintenance” of the building or the new state law, she added.
After discussion with the city staff, Lake Worth Beach Mayor Betty Resch and city commissioners unanimously voted to have the staff look into such options.
The HUD money, which comes from its Community Development Block Grants program, is still available for the city. The mayor and commissioners voted April 28 to ask the county to use that money either to install or upgrade lights at Harold Grimes Memorial Park off Sixth Avenue South east of Interstate 95.
Compass Center director calls funding denial ‘a gut punch’
Compass executive director Julie Seaver learned her organization had been denied on April 28, on the eve of her 57th birthday.
“I knew things like this were going to happen, but I guess until they actually do, and it’s blatant, and it’s right in front of your face,” she said, “This was a gut punch.”
It was the latest bureaucratic and financial blow to Compass and LGBTQ+ organizations in Florida since voters in 2022 elected DeSantis to a second term with a Republican supermajority in the state Legislature, and in 2024 Donald Trump to a second presidential term. Both Republicans won partly on promises to cut funding to LGBTQ+ groups and causes as part of a dismantling of DEI programs.
Lake Worth Beach officials have said the new Florida law may force them to end their official partnership with the rainbow-colored, Compass-hosted Palm Beach Pride festival and parade downtown, which attracts thousands countywide to the city each year.
On top of that, corporations that previously gave thousands of dollars to the annual event have pulled back from Compass and other LGBTQ+ groups nationwide since Trump’s second term started in 2025.
Compass received nearly $1.9 million in 2025 through government grants, the nonprofit’s tax filings show, about the same amount as the year prior.
Compass, which started in 1988 as the Stop AIDS Project of South Florida, provides low-cost HIV and AIDS medication and treatment, hosts youth groups and support groups, and hosts public events year-round. More information is available at compasslgbtq.com.
Email news tips and article ideas to Chris Persaud at cpersaud@pbpost.com.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: New anti-DEI law blocks grant to fix AC at Lake Worth’s LGBTQ center
Reporting by Chris Persaud, Palm Beach Post / Palm Beach Post
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
