News 2011
HUD Announces $9.1 million in HOPWA Funding
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced the availability of $9.1 million in funding through its Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) program to meet the housing needs of low-income people living with HIV/AIDS.
Rape in Haiti: The Aftershocks Continue
This month, Port-au-Prince hailed Michel Martelly as he took office as president, trumpeting new hope for his disaster-stricken country. Elsewhere in the Haitian capital, hope was stifled in the smothered screams of women and girls.
In 1981 I was living in Chicago. I had finally finished school, and I had a job that made my banker mother proud. “Phill works as a marketing director with AT&T,” she would tell her friends. And she had every right to be proud. She and my truck driver father had made tremendous sacrifices to make sure I had gotten a great education. I lived on the 24th floor of Doral Plaza, a luxury apartment building on the Chicago’s Gold coast—radio personality Tom Joyner was one of my neighbors. I had come a long way from the Algeld Gardens housing project on the far side of Chicago where I had grown up.
I found out that I was HIV positive in 2003. By then treatments had advanced to the point where one could choose to live with the disease when just a decade earlier it was something you’d most likely die from. Despite the fact that I had lifesaving medicines available to me, I was torn between accepting treatment and wallowing in my own denial and shame. Suddenly, the life that I’d envisioned for myself—one that included romance, health and family—was plagued with uncertainty, loneliness and stigma.
The topic of HIV came up in my ninth grade health class this year. As one of my classmates wrote the letters H-I-V on the board, my teacher asked if anyone knew what these letters stood for. A few hands quickly shot into the air and, someone stated: “Human Immunodeficiency Virus.” Nodding his head, my teacher turned back to the board and began furiously scribbling statistics and facts about HIV/AIDS, things that we had all heard before. It was not until my teacher turned around and said,