Cleveland Pride

source: AIDS Taskforce Lifelines dated 11/21/2009

Earlier this year the AIDS Taskforce closed Gurnick Place and Abdenour House, two of our residential programs for people with AIDS, for good. And in a mid-summer issue of LifeLines, we talked about those closings as marking the beginning of a change-a positive change. This is part of what that issue of LifeLines said:

“For many people being diagnosed with HIV now, as opposed to 20 years ago, the diagnosis is the beginning of a journey-a journey of realizing goals and dreams while living with a challenging medical condition. The AIDS Taskforce’s role, therefore, should be as outfitters for the journey. Not just a safety net-though sometimes we’ll still need to provide that critical function. But more fundamentally as a kind of base camp for ‘the climb ahead’: a place where you learn skills, acquire essential resources, before setting out on ‘the journey’-knowing that if at any point you run into obstacles you can’t overcome, we’ll still be here, the place you can come back to for additional help and resources before you tackle ‘the journey’ once again.”

Since then we’ve continued to face the need for change, and the prospects and opportunities for the future. It hasn’t always been easy. It’s meant critically examining everything we do, even so-called “sacred cows” in programming, and asking: Is this or that program or service-is it still relevant? Does it serve the best long-term interests of people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS? If the AIDS epidemic is slowly but surely being transformed, are we, as an agency, transforming as well?

Over the next few issues of LifeLines we’ll share our next steps, our timetable for transformation, with you all, our friends and supporters. For the moment, we’ll indicate this much: we are embarking on a deliberate process of integrating many of the services we now provide out into existing community service frameworks, and re-focusing (some would say, returning to the original AIDS service organization focus) on training, promotion of best practices, advocacy, systems monitoring, and community engagement. To put it another way: at the end of this transformation process, which we estimate will take about 3 years, the AIDS Taskforce of Greater Cleveland will be, by design, about 40% of its current budget and staffing, and highly focused on systems change, service excellence, and the engagement of people with AIDS in the world (as opposed to specialized “AIDS settings” like HIV/AIDS housing programs).

Typically, organizations project growth, expansion (choosing to grow smaller and more focused is by far the exception). What we’re planning, then, seems counter-intuitive. But the fundamental question in HIV/AIDS in recent years, in many parts of the United States, is this: what does the evolving epidemic demand that we do? And the answer is simple: we need a new vision, one based on potential, not peril. And that new vision is simple: Our job is to help unleash the extraordinary potential of people with HIV/AIDS in our community who will learn, grow, contribute, and truly live.

But . . . more details to follow. There are big changes ahead, and much to tell. It’s terrifying. It’s exciting. It’s the right path to take.

And it’s the right path to take for no other reason than this: it pushes us to do something that, frankly, we’ve stopped doing-dreaming of a world without AIDS, of the end of the epidemic. Imagine: people living their lives, preserving their health, getting the resources they need as a matter of course, so that they can achieve in the world. Imagine: as a nation, taking sexual health seriously, as a part of the fabric of society, not as a separate, incomplete activity we call “AIDS education.” Imagine: confronting stigma boldly and directly, whenever it rears its ugly head, but not allowing it stop us, individually or collectively, from pursuing our aspirations. Imagine: how a community could be transformed if we stopped viewing people with HIV/AIDS as a problem, as little more than a bottomless well of unmet needs, and started viewing them as part of the solution-utilizing their skills, passions, interests and talents to solve real community problems, like poverty and joblessness. Imagine. Imagine the end of HIV/AIDS. Imagine it in our lifetime. And then the next giant step forward-this is what we must now do: let’s build a new response to the epidemic based on out biggest dreams, not on our worst fears.