MARCH 21, 1997 GAY PEOPle's ChroNICLE

13

COMMUNITY GROUPS

Do not sit down and politely wait your turn

Cleveland-March 24, 1987: ACT UP first takes to the streets of New York City. Wall Street rush-hour traffic and the New York Stock Exchange are disrupted.

Result: A movement is born, pharmecutical company Burroughs Wellcome lowers the price of AZT, and the FDA announces a two-year reduction in the drug approval process.

In memory of the thousands of ACT UP members who have died from complications of AIDS as a result of the governmental neglect in the past decade, we felt it would be appropriate to use this space for an old fashioned diatribe of rage. We are sure that just this past sentence has pissed off many readers. Good! Wait until you have finished reading the entire article.

We live in a country where our medical care is decided and ruled over by insurance companies who are more interested in the bottom line than in appropriate medical care. A country where we still cannot get the National Institutes of Health to conduct more than a small handful of clinical trials of HIV medications on women.

Recently, Congress outlawed the HMO practice of performing radical mastectomies on the women of this country on an outpatient basis. These inhumane idiots were admitting women into a hospital in the morning, removing their breasts in the afternoon, and sending them home that night. Did you know this? Shame on you for not being more aware of what these criminals were doing to our sisters and mothers! How well do you think these very same individuals are dealing with HIV-positive women who are suffering with cervical cancer at alarming rates? Do you care?

Did you know that after we fought so many years to force our government to spend money on safe, effective HIV treatments, our president is now proposing limiting Medicaid coverage for these treatments? Most people living with HIV or AIDS in this country depend on medications provided through Medicaid for their survival. Shame on you for not knowing that. Why have you not written the president and told him that this policy is tantamount to human rights violations? And this man is not the enemy?

On February 12, ACT UP members along with other activists from Northeast Ohio made a bus trip to Columbus to meet with state legislators to ensure that they were educated on the governor's proposed increased funding for the state's AIDS Drug Assistance Program, or ADAP. Many people from our community donated time and money to fund this trip. Even though the trip and its purpose was advertised well in advance, nearly half of the seats on the bus were empty. A small handful of people were able to convince the governor to move on this issue; a move that may save the lives of hundreds of our friends and family members. Imagine what we could accomplish if we could get more of you off your asses.

ACT UP fought to ensure that Cuyahoga County would administer our federallyfunded Title I Ryan White dollars, not the city of Cleveland. The city has a poor track record of administering grant money for HIV issues.

In an effort to avoid duplication of spending, the Ryan White Title I Planning Council decided to work with the Ryan White Title II Planning Council to perform the first serious "Needs Assessment Study" of people living with HIV and AIDS in our area.

A portion of the Title II money is administered by the city of Cleveland. After months of waiting for the city to release the necessary funds to complete this study, as federally mandated, the city has still not released their portion of the money, and we stand in jeopardy of losing hundreds of thousands of supplemental dollars earmarked for direct care of people living with HIV/AIDS.

The Ryan White Title I Planning Council meetings are open to the public. Have you been to even one meeting? Why are you reading this here for the first time? Where is your rage? ACT UP has put the city of Cleve on notice regarding this issue. As of the Writing of this article, we have just learned that the city has managed to expedite this

land

matter. The necessary funds have now been released.

The Needs Assessment Study decided on by the Title I Planning Council is a four step process. We have the results of the first two steps of this process. This process involved distributing a survey of need to PWAS and a separate survey of need to AIDS service organizations.

Did you know that one of the directors of an AIDS service organization in our area— someone who

sits on the Title I Planning Council at first refused to distribute needs assesment surveys to their clients? This indi-

AIDS Funding Collaborative. This is a group of people who we have been able to find out little about.

These individuals receive money from private foundations and Cuyahoga County, and they then distribute these funds among the AIDS service organizations in our area. Their decisions on funding take place behind closed doors with little or no oversight by people living with HIV and AIDS. When we have attempted to question them about their methods and motives, we were met with rudeness and paranoia.

ACT UP

Why are decisions involving public funds being made behind closed doors? Do you care? Why are you not storming City Hall demanding that their pittance be spent on direct services for those most in need in our community?

vidual believed THE AIDS COALITION TO UNLEASH POWER

that the organization knew

more about the

CLEVELAND

needs of the clients than the clients themselves.

You may have already written this organization a check, and then felt that you had done your part to fight the war on AIDS. Why weren't you at the Ryan White Planning Council meetings so that you would know who this idiot is? Then you could stop writing those checks until this individual begins treating the organization's clients with dignity. If this is their attitude, do you really think that they are capable of spending your money in a humane fashion? Are you really pissed off yet?

One of the greatest needs identified as unmet in this community was housing, day care and assistance with daily tasks for HIV positive women, some of whom have children who may or may not be HIV positive. To date, there are no services within ou community that meets these needs.

Women compromise a significant percentage of new infections in our community. This is a women's issue. Where are the women in our community? Why are you not outraged? Do you still suffer from the misconception that lesbians do not get HIV? And even if you do believe this, what difference does it make that these women are, or are not, lesbians? And why are gay men in this community not fighting harder to make sure that these women are treated as well as yourselves? Women have taken care of gay men and their lovers throughout the 16 years of this pandemic. Don't you feel any responsibility to fight for them?

After years of badgering, sweet talking, protesting, screaming and chaining ourselves to City Hall, the city of Cleveland is finally going to begin spending money out of the general fund on people with HIV and AIDS. And where are they thinking of placing a majority of these funds? In the hands of the

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Keep in mind that when San Francisco had one tenth the number of AIDS cases that Cleveland now has, the city spent in one year ten times the amount of money that our city has spent on direct services during the entire AIDS crisis.

Recently, an ACT UP member met with Mayor Michael White's executive assistant, Judith Zimomra, and the AIDS coordinator for the City of Cleveland, Bob Bucklew, in an effort to bring these issues to the forefront of our ongoing discussions with the city administration. In light of an article in the Metro section of the February 21 Plain Dealer, apparently our discussions were fruitful.

This is a call to action. On March 24, we are going to be meeting on the steps of Cleveland

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City Hall at noon. As a matter of pride, we ask that you join us. The women and men of our community have taught the world how to care for people living with HIV or AIDS. Nearly every AIDS service organization in the world was begun by someone from our community; by people living with HIV or AIDS, and those who love and care for them.

We are going to meet, not as an act of civil disobedience, but as an act of pride. We will stand on the steps of City Hall and hail Mayor White in an effort to sit at a table with him and offer him our help. Who knows more about caring for people living with HIV and AIDS than our community? The long years of fighting are not over, they are just beginning. The rage of a small number in our community has moved governments the world over. Why are you afraid to help us save the lives of the men and women in our community?

Do you remember the first thing that you ever learned in school? If you are like most of us, it was to be good little girls and boys and sit down and shut up, and politely wait your turn. If you continue to politely wait your turn with your mouths shut-tens, no, hundreds of thousands of men and woman from our community will die needlessly. Where is your rage?

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