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GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE JULY 8, 1994

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Stark County to cut Quest Recovery Services funding

by Paul Schwitzgebel

Proposed budgetary cuts for Canton's Quest Recovery Services agency would have a negative impact on the gay community and on the HIV community, according to Joe Spinelli, the state-appointed gay Risk Reduction Specialist for Canton/Stark county and adjacent rural counties.

The Stark County Alcohol and Drug Addiction Services Board (ADAS) has proposed cutting up to $242,000 from Quest's total annual $1.5 million budget for the year beginning July 1. ADAS was clearly dissatisfied with the prevention and outreach portion of Quest's budget proposal for the coming year since ADAS agreed to fully fund the clinical or treatment side of the request while rejecting j many of the prevention and outreach services. The ripple effect of salary and staff realignment within Quest allegedly would harm services to the lesbian, gay and HIV communities. One analysis suggested that only one in three prevention dollars was actually going for employees who provided direct services, while as much or more was being used for office and administrative salaries.

Thomas Wingert, AIDS services coordinator based at the Canton City Health Department, stressed that not a single dollar of state or federal HIV services money had been withdrawn from Quest, and that he expected the agency to continue to perform all the functions specified in the various existing grants and

contracts.

Quest and its predecessor agencies have been at the forefront of providing drug and alcohol prevention and treatment services for almost twenty-five years in the Canton area. In the late 1980's, through a sub-contract arrangement with Akron's Catholic Service

League, Quest began providing HIV case management and buddy program services funded by a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Subsequently, Quest has become a contract agency for AIDS/HIV minority outreach, counseling and testing services and gay risk reduction. The local buddy program has been coordinated by Quest's volunteer coordinator.

Coordination of the AIDS buddy program appears to be the most vulnerable to being lost in the service realignment since it is not specifically funded by any grant received by Quest, and was just an added responsibility handled by the agency's volunteer coordinator Cathey Mitchell.

Mitchell has received a two week termination notice and volunteer coordination at the agency has been assigned to a staff person who will also be responsible to middle school and high school drug and alcohol prevention programs which were formerly regarded as full time programs on their own. In the past, Quest has used the volunteer hours provided by buddies as substantiation to qualify for United Way grants.

Generally, Quest has been regarded as a progressive agency in the politically conservative Canton area. Its employment and service provision policies both pledge non-discrimination based on sexual orientation. Having historically prided itself on having recovering individuals serve on its board of directors, it took the agency several years to open board membership to anyone from the local gay or HIV communities.

Spinelli, at a meeting of buddies and case management clients, urged those present to be respectful, but to make their objection to the budget cuts known to the ADAS board.

Center to raise $98K for

WOOD IT IS! Finegan anti-violence project

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The board of trustees of the Lesbian-Gay Community Service Center restructured the center's budget at its June 21 board meeting and committed to a $98,000 major donor campaign in 1994 in order to support a Maryann Finegan Anti-Violence Program Manager position in addition to the Center's existing budget.

"The Maryann Finegan Anti-Violence Program is central to the Center's mission and will become more critical as our community takes a more visible and active role in opposing the hatred and lies being spread by the extremist right," said Center director Judy Rainbrook. "The Center needs to be here for the lesbian-gay-bisexual community on violence issues. We believe the community will respond by being here financially for the Center."

The Finegan Project was suspended in

the spring for lack of funding.

The Center also announced it will initiate a Community Events Calendar. Center personnel will log community events on the calendar when notified and communicate to any caller which events have been placed on the calendar. The Center will not exercise any control over event planning, nor will staff call organizations to request information. All events will be logged onto the calendar in the order in which they are received. It is hoped that this service will begin to meet the lesbian-gay-bisexual community's need for a central location for this information.

The Center is now serving nearly 2,000 people a month who call, drop-in or meet there and is involved in planning for the September 25 AIDS Walk and the development of the North Coast HIV/AIDS Coalition.

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