A Grass-Roots Alliance Is Making 30,000 Packets Available in Stores In D.C. Areas Hit Hardest by AIDS
By Susan Levine
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, December 1, 2006
David Johnson and Melina Afzal walked into the SpinCycle Coin Laundry in Southeast Washington just after 10 p.m. -- armed with condoms, not dirty clothes.
"So what do I do?" night manager Nathaniel Brown asked as the two began piling the packets into a bowl on the counter. Just tell customers the condoms are there for the taking, Johnson replied.
"I'll make sure people know," Brown assured him. "I'll keep the bowl full."
Over the next two months, businesses such as the laundromat are "Life Guard stations" in a project that is as grass-roots as they come. An alliance of six community groups intends to leave them little zip-lock bags of free protection and information, 30,000 condoms in all, to staunch transmission of the virus in targeted District neighborhoods.
"The idea is to get the word out: Here's a packet than can save your life," said Franck DeRose, executive director of an education organization, the Condom Project.
Today is World AIDS Day, and numerous events are being held across the District, a city that 25 years into the AIDS crisis has some of the worst HIV infection rates in the country. The Life Guard effort was born in part from the coalition's frustration over slow condom distribution by D.C. health officials.
Despite ambitious goals, the D.C. Administration for HIV Policy and Programs gave out only 290,000 condoms in 2004 and just a quarter of its 600,000 target in 2005. This year's total will be less than 105,000.
"This helps to fill that gap and address that need," said Barbara Chinn, director of the Whitman-Walker Clinic's Max Robinson Center in Southeast. "Because that need is now."
Condoms are one of the simplest, safest and most effective ways of preventing the spread of the virus. But in many neighborhoods, they are not easily accessible.
This fall, another community coalition took on CVS drugstores in lower-income areas that were selling condoms from locked containers. It recently persuaded CVS to keep open displays of at least some packets. The company also is donating 2,000 condoms for supporters to pass out on the street.
Expanded condom availability should be an "immediate priority," according to a report from the DC Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, a nonprofit public policy organization that has graded the District harshly for its response to the epidemic.
In September, HIV administration director Marsha Martin announced that the city would buy 1 million condoms to disseminate through nontraditional channels such as restaurants, hotels and boutiques. But that initiative has stalled because the purchase has yet to be approved by the city's contracts and procurements office.
"We're failing on this one," Martin conceded this week, though she remains optimistic that the government ultimately will succeed. As part of a citywide campaign to make HIV testing routine among residents 14 to 84, she wants the condom packages to be branded with the campaign's slogan and placed in arty containers chosen through a design contest. Businesses are more likely to display attractive containers.
The Life Guard project is identifying its prospective sites during late-night reconnaissance drives, particularly in Wards 7 and 8. Both have among the highest HIV/AIDS mortality rates in the District.
Organizers say it would be ideal to have condoms available at places that are open round-the-clock.
"They do save lives at 2 o'clock in the morning," said Anne Wiseman, program director at Metro Teen AIDS, one of the six groups involved. As a coalition, the groups focus on youths, substance abusers, gay men, and women who have suffered domestic violence. All are at higher risk of being infected.
In Southeast, New York Fried Chicken on Alabama Avenue signed on first. Next was SpinCycle at Good Hope and Naylor roads. Johnson, who works with the Condom Project, and Afzal, of the organization Prevention Works, spent a couple of hours Wednesday making the first deliveries and taping up signs announcing the condoms' availability.
"This is a good thing," the laundromat's night manager told them, speaking from the perspective of someone who has lost two relatives to AIDS. "This is a real good thing."
Volunteers will continually monitor and replenish supplies. And they could stay busy.
After just one night, less than a third of 400 condoms were left.
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