Leah Stockton, the director of development engagement for Keys Health and Housing, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM yesterday morning to talk about the organization.
How is the Poinciana project coming along?
Stockton said, “The Poinciana project is actually a collaborative project between the social service agencies, the Housing Authority, the City of Key West, the Continuum of Care – lots of partners involved in this one. We have buildings off of Duck Avenue and the Poinciana Plaza that are used to provide social services. We have housing there for veterans, children, family, homeless, developmentally disabled, sort of runs the gamut for some of our most vulnerable residents, and they are in buildings that have really exceeded their useful life. They were old Navy housing to the city. They’re intended as single units and they’ve been used to run programs for many years. We’re in the beginning stages and had approval from the city last week to move forward on this project, so we’re very excited for that to begin to take the buildings down and replace them with resilient, safer, more efficient buildings, and to rehab some of the existing buildings as well. It’s really an exciting project not just for our organization, but for many others, and we’re excited to be a part of it.”
Keys Health and Housing began in 1986 to provide support to individuals living with HIV/AIDS in the Florida Keys.
Stockton said, “We just received a grant from the state to do HIV prevention here in the Keys, and this is something that we continue to push as a major goal of our organization, and we would like to ask the community to join us in making sure that our residents and our visitors remain healthy and so we have a number of ways to engage, we can do testing events on site, a business, an event, an organization that that may need it at a fair, that sort of thing. We also do condom distribution throughout the community, that you can have a little box in your lobby, or the bathroom, or put them in guest rooms if you’re a hotel, etc. And those are free, and we distribute Keys wide. We can also do educational materials, sort of the gamut of making sure that everybody, like I said, stays safe and healthy. And then once somebody does come in and get that test, we can then connect them to resources throughout the community as needed. We are here Monday through Friday, eight to five, and we have testing. You can just walk in at any time if you need that as well. We’re glad to help, not just then, but on the day to day. If you want to come by, just stop in.”
Pride is just around the corner.
Stockton said, “We’ll be at Pride at both the street fair and in the parade, so watch for us there and stop by and say hi.”
For more information, click here: https://keyshh.org/