Former location of the LGBT Center of Central PA on N. 3rd St.
Last October, the LBGT Center of Central PA abruptly left its long-time headquarters in Midtown Harrisburg.
At the time, Amanda Arbour, the center’s executive director, said that “a number of factors have aligned to indicate that now is the right time to make this move.” They would work remotely out of GLO-Harrisburg, located several blocks away, until they find another, larger home, she said.
However, center officials have now publicly released a lengthy statement explaining in greater detail why they left the building at 1306 N. 3rd St. They had to leave due to unaddressed, potentially harmful, environmental factors, they said.
In their statement, center officials placed blame for the departure squarely on the landlord, who also happens to be the city’s mayor. For his part, Mayor Eric Papenfuse thoroughly disputes their version of events.
In a lengthy press release, the center claims that they found mold and asbestos in the basement of their leased building and brought up these concerns with Papenfuse. According to Arbour, the center brought in inspectors who identified the mold as “a serious issue requiring remediation,” she said.
According to Arbour, Papenfuse was resistant to follow the remediation treatment proposed by inspectors that the center brought in. Instead, she said, he proposed an alternate treatment, which Arbour did not believe would address the issue.
In the meantime, the center closed off impacted areas of the building, she said.
While the center did not rent the basement of the facility, Arbour said that Papenfuse allowed them to use it for storage.
“It was a stressful, frustrating, and exhausting process trying to address these serious issues in our building with no support or acknowledgment of the potential impact on our health and safety from our landlord,” Arbour said. “We wish our departure had been under different circumstances, but with the lack of response and subsequent non-action from Eric Papenfuse, we had no other option.”
However, Papenfuse, responding to TheBurg via text message, said that he wasn’t against remediation, but rather wanted to hire his own contractor, stating that Arbour’s suggested company would’ve cost $10,000.
“We never said we wouldn’t remediate the mold in the basement,” he said. “A lot of Harrisburg basements are unfinished and have areas where water penetrates. It was simply a matter of cost and approach.”
According to Arbour, Papenfuse asked them to remove their items from the basement so that they could do a walk-through with him. Papenfuse said that they shouldn’t have been using the basement.
“He did not address any of our specific requests or the documentation that we had provided,” Arbour said in a statement on the center’s website. “This response indicated to us that he had no intention of addressing these serious health and safety issues in his property.”
The center requested an early lease termination, which Papenfuse said he honored.
“They were not forced out,” he said. “The situation was handled professionally at all times.”
Papenfuse said that he has since remediated the mold in the basement.
He added that he saw the public statement, which was also posted on social media, as a fundraising tactic by the center.
“It’s a viciously slanderous email that uses hate as a fundraising tool,” he said.*
The LGBT Center stated that they decided to wait to share their experience until after the recent 2021 municipal election, in which Papenfuse ran as a write-in candidate for mayor and ultimately lost to Democratic nominee Wanda Williams. Arbour said that they wanted to avoid the appearance of involvement in a political campaign which could have affected their tax-exempt status as a nonprofit.
“We feel it is important to hold Eric Papenfuse publicly accountable for how he treated us as a tenant, and to do our part to ensure that other tenants or potential tenants aren’t put in the same position as we were,” Arbour said. “We will not be silent in the face of injustice and mistreatment.”
As part of their statement, the center added that for those who would like to help offset the costs associated with the mold, the move and the ongoing operations that have been affected, they welcome donations.
* This story was updated with an additional quote from Mayor Papenfuse.
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