A Strong Case for AIDS Funds

The typical patient at the Minority AIDS Project is gay, poor and black, under 40, estranged from his family and addicted to drugs.

If he isn’t already overcome with the symptoms of AIDS, he’s just been hit with the realization that he has the disease and will die from it. Dealing with complex cases such as his require medical technology, drug treatment, home care and financial and psychological support. That’s why Los Angeles County health officials want the Board of Supervisors to increase the amount of money available for AIDS care by $9 million, raising government spending on the disease to $69 million. But the board, controlled by a conservative three-man majority, has shown no indication it will support the request.

This is an important dispute, and a very human one. Health officials told the supervisors Tuesday that by 1993, more than 24,000 people in the county will have AIDS. The figure, as of May 31, was 9,513. There are another 109,000 infected with HIV, the AIDS virus, although they have not yet developed the disease.

The human suffering represented by those figures hasn’t been conveyed in past supervisorial discussions of AIDS. Rather, the request for money has become the center of a media circus.

It was certainly circus time in May when more than 36 rubber-gloved sheriff’s deputies arrested 27 activists who had written “Aids Care Now” in red lipstick on the glass barrier that separates the supervisors from the audience. A June demonstration was more restrained. Seven of the protesters sang a hymn as the supervisors’ meeting opened. Unappreciative of this call for divine help, the supes had the singers arrested.

I saw the real story--good people, working hard to help the sick--when I visited the Minority AIDS Project. Much of the $9 million would go to efforts such as this.

The Minority AIDS Project is located in a one-story, brown-tiled building on West Jefferson Boulevard, two blocks west of La Brea Avenue. A manufacturer is across the street. An old Los Angeles motor court, turned into shabby apartments for the poor, is nearby. Above the front door of the project building is a large sign: “Unity Fellowship Center. Love For Everyone.” The Rev. Carl Bean of the Unity Fellowship of Christ Church, who is black and gay, started the project in 1985, as he watched the destruction caused by the AIDS epidemic in the black and Latino communities.

This low-rent project cares for more than 700 people with AIDS--57% of them black, 31% Latino--on a budget of just $1.6 million a year.

The lives of the patients are rough. “They’re unemployed, underemployed, homeless, doubly diagnosed with substance abuse and AIDS,” said Gil Gerald, the executive director.

If the disease is at an early stage, the prescription is outpatient treatment with the drug AZT to slow the disease. That means a wait of at least six weeks for an appointment at County-USC Medical Center. Once admitted for treatment, the patients wait to see the doctor. Gerald said, “We tell them, ‘You’ve got a doctor’s appointment. It’ll take five hours. Are you going to bring something with you to do?’ ”

As the disease worsens, the choice is between admittance to the county hospital or home care. The project provides home nursing care to 45 people. That costs taxpayers $120 a day, compared to $700 a day at the hospital.

As in other places, AIDS care in Los Angeles County depends largely on a network of community organizations such as the Minority AIDS Project, rather than government agencies. But they’ve been starved for funds because the supervisors were slow to respond when the epidemic spread in the early ‘80s. Conservatives killed educational programs and distribution of clean needles and bleach to drug addicts. Even more harmful to public health, they shifted county spending priorities from health and social welfare programs to law enforcement. That philosophy hacked away at requests from department officials who believed more money was needed. AIDS programs were victims.

On Tuesday, the supervisors’ experts advised them the time had come to change. The County-Community HIV Planning Council, heavy with county health experts and community leaders, presented a report to the board making a strong case for more money. Joining them was Bob Gates, the county’s health director, an advocate of the $9-million appropriation.

This time, there were no demonstrations, no arrests. Just serious men and women speaking to the board. They’ve made their case. Now it’s up to the supervisors when they consider the county budget next week.