Dear Friends,
As Marty’s Place nears our second anniversary since reopening in 2015, this season is a reflection of our mission to provide affordable housing for low-income people in San Francisco with HIV/AIDS. The philosophy from the Aurora Dawn Foundation was “that the homeless, sick and rejected among us deserve more than scraps, crumbs and leftovers. They deserve choice and preferential treatment.” Today, our efforts are aimed at preserving this with our own in honor of Richard Purcell’s original vision.
The stories shared in the original Seasons were so full of life and inspiration while dealing with the hardships that were standard for people living with AIDS in an era before anti-retroviral (ART) medications. Our editor, Hank Trout, has written beautifully about HIV/AIDS today, and it is very different animal than decades ago. We are the survivors of this pandemic and share our stories in order to thrive but never forget an era of genocidal neglect.
In the Sprint & Summer 2001 edition, Purcell wrote “Those of us here in the ‘eye of the storm,’ so to speak, sometimes forget that those who are further removed have had less opportunity to be informed about or to experience first hand the scope of this disaster.” To offer more than scraps to the most vulnerable by contemporary standards is to level with people about the seriousness of stigma and perpetuating inaccurate stereotypes.
Many of the basic facts about AIDS weren’t well understood then but they aren’t much better when we begin to look at how stigma plays into health care, and affects those of us living with the virus today. It is just as vital to continue creating new opportunities for those who don’t understand and try to bridge that gap because lives will depend on it. Access to treatment and health care are what changed HIV/AIDS from being a terminally ill condition to a chronic and managed one. We know the correlations are key to this change, and access to both must continue in order for us to end HIV/AIDS.
Since late-January, this administration and Congress are tinkering with the health care access for more than 30 million people. Many are seniors and disabled who will be harmed by less or no care. Prior to enacting the Affordable Care Act (i.e. Obamacare), it was estimated that therewere nearly 50 million uninsured people in the United States, and medical debt was reported in the New York Times as the number one reason people were filing for bankruptcy in June 2009. The poor and homeless will fare even worse if current proposals to replace the ACA pass both houses with the gutting of Medicaid expansion.
It is alarming to imagine the essential nature of Ryan White Care Act funding being cut when the value is either not understood or dismissed. Ramifications from this would be grim, and not far etched when the National Office on AIDS Policy was closed with no current national strategy since the first day of this administration. Many of those living with HIV/AIDS depend on Ryan White funding for access to ARTs, particularly seniors, poor, and disabled people. The inspiration is on the road ahead with many opportunities being met from those of us who must organize in coalitions for our survival and to speak up for the most vulnerable or risk going back to an era when ART treatments were not available, and the “eye of the storm” will be over us in crisis. Silence equals death.
The role of Marty’s Place will be a refuge from any storm as we continue our work with our friends, neighbors, and community supporters in solidarity of Purcell’s vision back then with where we are today.
Michael Rouppet