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Once at Front Line of AIDS War, District Is Now Fighting Blind
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Before 1999, "spending was spread around various agencies," said financial spokeswoman Maryann Young, and the figures are "less reliable." Looking for figures prior to 1999, she added, had become "a research project."
Understaffing has always been an issue, especially in the office's surveillance division, which is responsible for collecting HIV and AIDS data. Caitlin Ryan, who was director in the early 1990s, counted the number of steps it took to hire someone: 16. "When the paperwork left my office, it fell off a cliff," says Ryan, "and I spent a lot of time chasing after it." Today, the vacancies in the surveillance division make up 11 of the 25 vacancies in Martin's office, which has 114 full-time employees.
Guy Weston, who was hired as director of the data and research division at the agency in 2001, says: "People were so used to seeing D- and F-quality work that they get excited over a C-plus when in fact the standard should be an A." Weston, who was the state AIDS director for Vermont, left in 2003.
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In the past few months, AHPP's Martin, once a special assistant on HIV/AIDS policy in the Clinton administration, has been touring various community-based organizations. Mayor Anthony A. Williams (D) is scheduled to announce the members of the first HIV/AIDS task force, which he plans to chair. AHPP has finalized its partnership with the School of Public Health and Health Services at George Washington University, which will help staff the surveillance division. Council member David A. Catania (I-At Large), who as chairman of the council's Committee on Health has been one of the office's harshest critics, now sounds positively buoyant. "Where we are this year versus where we were last year is night and day," he says.
"You can definitely feel that the tide turning," says Paola Barahona, head of PreventionWorks!, a nonprofit group that distributes clean needles. For the first time, her organization might get a grant for testing and counseling.
"There's a lot to clean up, a whole lot to clean up, and it's going to take time," Hamilton says.
"But we all have to understand that with a disease like AIDS, time is very, very, very precious."
In an hour-long visit a few weeks ago to the cramped offices of the Women's Collective near 14th and U, Martin promised to help the center, whose two case managers serve 117 women with HIV and AIDS, find a bigger home.
Sitting in the back room, fidgeting with a crumpled, stained napkin, living with HIV for 20 years, Patricia was there, her black purse on her lap. Inside of it was a photo of her five children and the program for the memorial of her younger sister, who died from AIDS complications Feb. 12.
Even as she grieves for her sister, she fears for her daughter, too. Whenever the girl goes out, leaving the babies with her, Patricia worries, "What if she gets it, too?" The disease of generations, traveling on.
