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LOU CHIBBARO JR.
Friday, January 21, 2005
For the second year in a row, the D.C. government is reducing funds for two local
AIDS prevention programs that target gay men, forcing the Whitman-Walker Clinic
and the group Us Helping Us to lay off employees and drastically curtail the scope
of their HIV prevention efforts.
The HIV/AIDS Administration, which oversees the city’s AIDS programs,
has also eliminated a $100,000 grant that enabled Us Helping Us to provide HIV
prevention services to transgendered residents.
Ron Simmons, executive director of Us Helping Us, called the action a serious
blow to the city’s effort to curtail skyrocketing HIV infection rates
among transgendered people.
“We don’t know why this is happening,” Simmons said. “We
hear other groups are getting similar cuts.”
Lydia Watts, a senior deputy director of the D.C. Department of Health who
oversees HAA, said the cuts came about, in part, from a series of policy changes
at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, which provides nearly
all funds for the city’s HIV prevention programs.
The CDC announced last year that it would redirect two-thirds of the $49 million
it allocates to community-based organizations for HIV prevention programs to
new programs targeting people who are already infected with HIV. The announcement
stunned AIDS activists, who said the change would drastically reduce or eliminate
programs throughout the country that seek to prevent gay men and other groups
at risk of HIV from becoming infected.
CDC officials said longstanding programs that emphasize safe-sex messages for
HIV-negative people created a health and information “gap” for those
already infected. The officials said spending more money on encouraging people
to get tested for HIV and educating them on how to prevent spreading the virus
to others would have a greater impact on curtailing the overall spread of the
disease.
Watts said rules requiring the city to allocate funding levels for HIV prevention
programs based on the ranking of population groups with the highest infection
rates also led to a reduction in funds for the Whitman-Walker and Us Helping
Us programs.
According to Watts, white gay men were ranked seventh among seven risk group
populations. She said black gay men tied for fifth place in that ranking. Population
groups given higher rankings were intravenous drug abusers, Latinos, women,
and persons already infected, among other groups.
In addition, Watts said a 2002 CDC grant that enabled Whitman-Walker to start
the HIV prevention program targeting white gay men, which the group calls its
“G-Net” program, had a duration of just one year. HAA obtained grants
for the program in subsequent years through supplemental CDC funds on a year-by-year
basis, but the CDC never made a commitment to fund the program indefinitely,
Watts said.
The Whitman-Walker prevention program facing the funding cuts has targeted
white gay men through a number of methods, including seminars promoting safer
sex and relationship building strategies. The program, which the clinic calls
G-Net, also includes sending outreach workers to gay bars and other gay meeting
places to distribute condoms and promote safer-sex practices.
The G-Net program received funding of $440,000 in 2002 and 2003, its first
two years of operation, according to Stephen McDonald, its former director.
In 2004, HAA reduced the funding to $200,000, McDonald said. HAA reduced the
funding to just $75,000 for 2005, forcing the clinic to eliminate two full-time
positions, said clinic spokesperson Brian Justice.
Simmons said funding for the Us Helping Us program, which targeted black gay
men for HIV prevention, had received $400,000 before the city cut it back to
$200,000 last year. Simmons said the city reduced the funding to $75,000 for
2005.
He said the cuts in the program targeting black gay men, and the elimination
of the programming targeting transgendered people, would force Us Helping Us
to lay off three full-time employees and nine part-time employees.
Simmons said he’s aware that the CDC’s change in policy played
a role in the funding cutback, but said the change makes no sense because people
at high risk for HIV infection will no longer receive prevention messages that
programs like Us Helping Us have provided.
“I want to find out what the logic is behind this,” he said.
Watts said she would take steps to seek out other funds for programs such as
those run by Us Helping Us and Whitman-Walker, including funds from the city’s
health budget.
“It won’t be easy,” she said. “The budget is tight.”
In a related development, the head of another local AIDS service organization
said he was disappointed that Watts and the city’s new Health Department
director, Dr. Gregg Pane, have so far failed to correct HAA’s longstanding
problem of taking too long to pay vendors it retains under city contracts to
provide services for people with HIV. Watts and Pane took office in September
after Mayor Anthony Williams announced their appointments in July.
Ron Mealy, executive director of the Carl Vogel Center, which provides medical
treatment related services to people with HIV, said HAA continues to place groups
like his in financial jeopardy by taking several months or longer to reimburse
them for services to clients.
In December, Mealy informed HAA that a delay in payment by HAA nearly forced
the Carl Vogel Center to shut down its Complementary Therapy program, which
would have suspended services to 239 clients for the months of December through
February. Mealy said the Center provides the clients with acupuncture and massage
therapy. He said HAA has since reimbursed the Center for the month of November
and Watts has promised to speed up reimbursements in the coming months.
Mark Lobar, chair of the Title I Ryan White Planning Council, which advises
the city and the federal government on the allocation of federal funds for AIDS
treatment programs, said HAA had failed to release funding related information
that the Council needs to conduct its work. Lobar said Watts did not appear
to be at fault for the delays because HAA’s finance office, which is in
charge of preparing the information the Council needs, is struggling to function
with most of its staff positions vacant. City Administrator Robert Bobb ordered
the transferring or firing of nearly all of the HAA finance office staff members
last summer following a HAA review, which he conducted, that found widespread
mismanagement, Bobb and other city officials said.
Bobb said the shakeup was aimed at allowing Pane and Watts to begin their tenure
with a “clean slate” and to enable them to put in place needed reforms
at HAA and the Health Department, which has jurisdiction over HAA.
“She is doing a reasonably good job as she’s learning,” said
Lobar, in discussing Watts’ role as the new HAA director. “The next
six months will be a better test of how she will go.”
Lobar, an attorney, added, “She has the ability and the skills and the
knowledge. I’m curious to see, once she’s got the lay of the land,
whether she will be able to move it into the direction it needs to go.”
Gay D.C. Councilmember David Catania (I-At-Large) is expected to play a greater
role in the Council’s oversight of HAA since his appointment this month
as the chair of the newly created Council Committee on Health. At the request
of local health and AIDS activists, including the Gay & Lesbian Activists
Alliance, the Council agreed to create the Health Committee by separating it
from the existing Committee on Human Services. Critics said the committee was
charged with covering too many city agencies and was unable to adequately oversee
health related issues, including the city’s AIDS programs.
Catania said he would be meeting soon with top officials in the mayor’s
office, including City Administrator Bobb, to seek a cooperative relationship
between his committee and the mayor’s office. Catania, who has the reputation
of being an aggressive advocate for Council oversight over all city agencies,
said he would begin by reviewing the overall status of the department and its
component agencies such as HAA.
“This won’t be a rush from one issue to the next,” he said.
“It will be a methodical review. I’m not going to put out fires.
It will be part of a larger commitment to fix the superstructure.”
Lou Chibbaro Jr. can be reached at lchibbaro@washblade.com.
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