POUGHKEEPSIE – Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney (NY, D-18) delivered a large financial investment to the Family Partnership Center in Poughkeepsie on Monday. The $1.2 million of federal funds will be used to further the center’s capital improvements project.
“This project will increase the safety, accessibility, and long-term sustainability of the Family Partnership Center (FPC),” Maloney said previously. The FPC houses 22 agencies that work with Family Services Inc. in the original Poughkeepsie High School on North Hamilton Street. The programming of Family Services and their 21 related non-profit agencies including Dutchess Outreach, is largely focused on behavioral health services. The FPC serves roughly 70,000 individuals a year with over 110,000 service interactions with 79% of clients living below the poverty line.
Family Services Inc. CEO Brian Doyle said that the FPC building was constructed between 1912 and 1914, becoming the first Poughkeepsie High School. The high school relocated to the south side of the city decades later, and the building became home to Our Lady of Lourdes High School before they departed in the mid-1990s. Family Services has begun a capital improvement plan estimated at $9.1 million to make much-needed repairs to the aging structure. Over the past couple of years a new heating system and roof have been installed and other necessary repairs have been made. “We have received a tremendous amount of help from all levels of government from the City of Poughkeepsie all the way to Washington DC. This $1.2 million is certainly going to help us restore the crumbling main entrance and make the center more accessible for everyone,” adding “Keeping the building sustainable keeps the services sustainable.”
“This building is 110 years old and we want to keep it here for another hundred years, but to do that, we have to invest in it,” Maloney said to the crowd of supporters. “Forty to 70,000 people come through here on any given year – 22 different organizations and that’s a lot of human need and a lot of positive good that’s going on in the community and we want to support that.”
