Category Archives: housing
Why AIDS Activists Occupy Wall Street — and How to Get Involved!
In 2008, as the stock market crashed and Congress prepared to give trillions of tax dollars to the banks, I desperately emailed all my AIDS activist friends: “We’ve got to stop this bailout! There will be no money for Obama … Continue reading
World AIDS Day 2010: Another funeral, to stand for many funerals
Today I got on the bus with ACT UP Philly and participated in the World AIDS Day action at the White House, where we sang hymns and chanted for the $50 billion that Obama promised to fight global AIDS. A … Continue reading
Filed under Africa, African Americans, economic justice, housing, treatment access, Washington, DC
ACT UP Philly still taking it to the streets! End waiting lists in Philadelphia, the U.S., and around the world!
President Obama promised to ensure that everyone has access to AIDS drugs by 2010. But now, the year that everyone was supposed to have access, 70% of people with HIV still lack access to medication! ************************************************************************ Join us as we … Continue reading
Filed under economic justice, housing, Philadelphia, treatment access
US Social Forum workshops not to be missed!
1p – 5:30p: HIV/AIDS and Social Justice – Cobo W2-61 – Fighting for the rights of people in prison, living on the streets, or in schools. Organizing against gentrification, poverty, and government neglect. Challenging racism, homophobia, and discrimination of all sorts. Confronting the forces of corporatization, globalization, and greed. AIDS activists are at the center of each of these battles, because we have long recognized that the AIDS epidemic is fueled by each of these forms of oppression. Good activists link local, national, and global struggles. They bring a broad range of voices to confront those with power. They work to amplify silenced voices within their own groups and throughout the world. And they win. We’ve won local victories like on-demand housing for everyone living with AIDS in NYC, and global victories like forcing drug companies and governments to accept generic drug competition. We are led by people living with HIV and have always brought the voices of those infected directly to those in power, amplified but not drowned out by the voices of allies. Come help us connect the dots between AIDS and oppressions faced by people on a daily basis, and learn what the successes and challenges of the AIDS movement can teach us all. Continue reading
Filed under Africa, African Americans, Alternatives to 501c3, arts and culture, California, disaster capitalism, displacement and gentrification, Drug users' rights, economic justice, gay and bisexual men, gender, Haiti, harm reduction, housing, immigration/migration, imperialism/colonialism, Latina/o communities in the United States, New Orleans, New York City, police repression, prison, revolutionary strategies, sex workers' rights, sexual violence, Southern United States, trans and gender non-conforming, transformative justice, treatment access, women
Che Gossett on AIDS activist Kiyoshi Kuromiya’s legacy and the intersections between all movements for liberation
“For many low income, no-income and houseless, queer and trans people of color, the distance between prisons and pride parades is not a chasm but instead, overlapping terrain.” Continue reading
Filed under African Americans, criminalization of HIV, economic justice, gay and bisexual men, harm reduction, housing, imperialism/colonialism, New York City, people with AIDS in leadership, Philadelphia, police repression, prison, revolutionary strategies, Southern United States, stigma, trans and gender non-conforming, Uncategorized, war, women
Solidarity Project 8 – Housing as HIV Prevention
The Solidarity Project, published online by the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP) from November 2006 to November 2008, is available in pdf format on CHAMP’s website. Issues 8 and 9 can also be viewed on the CHAMP site. Download Issue … Continue reading
Filed under economic justice, housing, Solidarity Project, Uncategorized
Housing As HIV Prevention
“One of the single biggest ways to prevent HIV by reducing risk behavior is to provide stability in housing,” says Charles King, president and CEO of Housing Works. “As long as you have chronic homelessness, people will be involved in drug activity that’s related to their homelessness and sex trade that’s related to their homelessness. Whether you’re HIV positive or negative, homelessness increases the risk of HIV transmission. The more people are forced to engage in survival activities, the greater the risk.” Continue reading
New York City’s HASA For ALL Campaign: Advocating for Homeless People With and At Risk for HIV
According to Sean Barry, co-director of NYCAHN, the problem is that “people who didn’t have an AIDS diagnosis and didn’t qualify for HASA because of that are dying because the bad conditions in the shelters worsen their health so quickly – before they can go through the bureaucratic process to get HASA benefits once they do get sick.” Housing Works estimates that 7,000 low-income people living with HIV would benefit from HASA For ALL, including an estimated 800 individuals in the shelter system.
“It took me two years to get on HASA,” Alan Perez, coordinator of the Legislative Action Group at GMHC, says. “I had to stop taking my meds just to get on it. A lot of people are doing something to get sick, especially people who are in the shelter system. They should be in permanent housing.” Continue reading
A Lone Activist Survives an Urban Shelter System
The people who work at the shelters put everybody in a classification that comes from Narcotics Anonymous – that you can’t manage your life so somebody has to do it for you. “You’re here, so you must have a problem. We’re gonna strip you down and build you back up, and we’re gonna make you the man that you couldn’t be.” They treat you like you’re on drugs, even if the problem is just that you’re having trouble with your wife, and you have a home, if you could just patch things up. People might have mental health problems, you might have HIV, or have had a disaster, like a fire. But I’m 45 years old – you can’t strip me.
I think people who work in this capacity need to listen. I would let people express themselves, and I think I would get a better response. Rather than “Shut up, let me tell you what I want you to do.” They provoke people. A guy could come there and be at his exceeding limit, and they’re not trained to notice anything like that. Something could trigger him, and he goes into a rage. I’ve seen suicides in the shelters. Continue reading
Abahlali baseMjondolo – The South African Shack Dwellers Movement
Abahlali baseMjondolo began in the large port city of Durban in early 2005, with a road blockade organized by people living in the Kennedy Road settlement to protest the sale to a local industrialist of nearby land that had long been promised by a local government representative to the shack dwellers for housing. The movement grew quickly, and now includes tens of thousands of people from more than 30 settlements, according to a history of Abahlali written by the Abahlali baseMjondolo Book Collective in October 2006. The document reports, “Amongst other victories, the Abahlali have democratised the governance of many settlements, stopped evictions in a number of settlements, won access to schools, stopped the industrial development of the land promised to Kennedy Road, forced numerous government officials, offices and projects to ‘come down to the people,’ and mounted vigorous challenges to the uncritical assumption of a right to lead the local struggles of the poor in the name of a privileged access to the ‘global,’ i.e., Northern donors, academics and non-government organizations (NGOs), that remains typical of most of the NGO-based left.” The group’s peaceful demonstrations have frequently met with police beatings, rubber bullets (and sometimes live ammunition), and arrests. Continue reading
