August 15, 2008
OLYMPIAN ACTIVIST
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Li at Cylar House |
With the world focused on China and the Olympics, the popular narrative in the Chinese media is that the government has made huge strides in addressing the AIDS epidemic. But Li Dan, a Chinese AIDS activist doing a summer fellowship at Housing Works, said the reality is more complex.
"The Chinese government wants to cover up the AIDS problem because they want to focus on economic development," Li said. "The AIDS situation may stay the same for a long time, because the Chinese government has very little influence to control the sex industry and combat the blood-selling problem."
The soft spoken Li, 30, who has often been at odds with the his government, is staying at Housing Works' Keith D. Cylar House as part of the Advocate Summer Haven Program run by Asia Catalyst. Asia Catalyst has placed six Chinese advocates in fellowships at AIDS groups in the U.S., Hong Kong and Malaysia. The timing isn't a coincidence. Chinese activists are wary of being in China during the Olympics, especially given the recent three and half year prison sentence handed out to prominent AIDS activist Hu Jia. Hu was detained last year for "inciting subversion of state power and the socialist system".
"There are a lot of international reporters in Beijing now and if we reported that the government is addressing AIDS, that would be fine. But if we reported how the AIDS situation actually was, of course the Chinese government wouldn't be happy," Li said.
There are approximately 700,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in China. Li said that there are still many Chinese who sell blood for money, although a recent UNGASS progress report says that the practice is all but eradicated. The government claims to be providing prevention to drug users and sex workers, but Li said, "It's hard to control these industries, and the government doesn't work to control sex workers since it's good for the economy." In addition, schools have no formal sex education and AIDS is rarely mentioned by teachers. "Most youths learn through the Internet or other publications, so the message isn't always accurate," he said.
Astrophysicist to activist
In 1998, when he was an astrophysics graduate student, Li saw a screening of the film Philadelphia. He was so moved that he decided to fight AIDS in his own country. First, he made a documentary about a village ravaged by the epidemic. Then, in June 2003, he set up a school for AIDS orphans in China's Henan province, where a botched blood-donation campaign and a cover-up by corrupt officials resulted in a massive HIV epidemic. Li was beaten up at a government office, and local officials shut down his school.
Since then Li has received international media attention and funding for his organization, China Orchid AIDS Project. With assistance from Asia Catalyst, the organization has established the Korekata AIDS Law Center, protecting rights of people with AIDS who are frequently discriminated against because of stigma around the disease. "Often hospitals and doctors will refuse to see AIDS patients," Li said. "Only a couple of people in China are open about their HIV status in the media." China Orchid AIDS Project is also working on translating AIDS literature from other countries into Chinese to educate people with AIDS and non-governmental organizations.
Like most independent NGOs in China, China Orchid AIDS Project receives no government funding. The country has about 500 NGOs addressing AIDS, most with skeleton staffs, in a country of well over a billion people. After attending the United Nations High Level meeting on AIDS in June, Li was struck by how organized many foreign NGOs are. "Chinese NGOs need to build links with the world AIDS movement," he said.
Li hopes to apply in China what he is learning on his visit to the U.S. He was particularly inspired by U.S. legal services for people with HIV/AIDS, by POZ magazine (he plans to publish an AIDS magazine in China), and with Housing Works' social enterprise organizations. "If foreign foundations start to believe that China is solving the AIDS crisis, we won't have any other sources of funding," Li said. "It's important to learn to raise money on our own."
August 8, 2008
HOUSING ADVOCATES ROCK THE IAC
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IAC delegates hear about AIDS housing |
This week at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City, housing activists took a major step forward in ensuring that world leaders, governments and other AIDS advocates understand that without universal housing we'll never end the global AIDS pandemic.
On Sunday, the first-ever IAC satellite session addressing homelessness and AIDS attracted an audience of more than 150 people, which led to a pledge from the International AIDS Society to confront the lack of adequate housing as a barrier to HIV prevention, treatment and care. Throughout the week, activists staged protests that turned up the heat on IAC dignitaries Bill Clinton and UNAIDS executive director Peter Piot and showed conference attendees the growing international muscle behind the housing movement.
The week started off with a bang. Housing Works activists Julia Pena and Shasta Harrison smuggled two halves of a banner reading "Housing for People with AIDS Now!" into the IAC's opening ceremony under long skirts. When Piot approached the podium to speak, they and other activists hung the reconstructed banner from a balcony and shouted, "What do we want? Housing! When do we want it? Now!" The action provoked rousing applause from the crowd and held up Piot's speech. Check out Notibote.tv.
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Homeless encampment in the press room |
Earlier that day, the National AIDS Housing Coalition, Housing Works, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Ontario HIV Treatment Network hosted a groundbreaking International Summit on Poverty, Homelessness and HIV/AIDS satellite session. AIDS advocates from dozens of countries attended the summit to exchange information and learn about the link between housing and the treatment and prevention of AIDS and HIV. While a growing body of research in the U.S. has shown that housing is critical to both health outcomes for people living with HIV/AIDS and to reducing behaviors through which HIV is spread (visit the "resources" page of nationalaidshousing.org to learn more), the session made it clear that housing was an issue in rich and poor countries alike.
"Is black life that cheap in my country?" asked Yvette Raphael, a South African activist and session panelist. "We have to tackle housing the same way we do treatment."
"How many people with HIV/AIDS have sold everything they own to get treatment?" asked Enrique Chavez of Aid for AIDS.
The session crowd was energized when International AIDS Society official Ron MacInnis accepted a declaration signed by hundreds of people demanding that "policy makers address the lack of adequate housing as a barrier to effective HIV prevention, treatment and care; and that all government's fund and develop housing as a response to the AIDS pandemic."
"No government in the world can't afford this," McInnis said. He also said the IAS was committed to housing and urged the session participants to "hold us accountable."
Bumping heads with Bill
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Chisolm in front of delegates' demands for housing |
On Monday, advocates for people with AIDS interrupted Bill Clinton's speech to the IAC, with a peaceful demonstration demanding housing for people with AIDS. A dozen activists silently held white sheets scrawled with variations of "Homeless with AIDS! Please help!" in English and Spanish. After Clinton's speech was finished, the demonstrators created a "homeless encampment" outside the session room and chanted slogans demanding housing for all people living with HIV/AIDS.
Clinton didn't acknowledge the protesters until the end of his speech when he said that his foundation will begin working with the U.S. "It is important before we conclude that we have to remember that there is still a lot of work to do in high-income countries," Clinton said. "That is what these people holding these signs are trying to remind us of. We have got a lot of homeless people in rich countries because of the declining condition of the home mortgage crisis, the rising price of gasoline." Clinton ignored the fact that homeless people with AIDS is as huge a problem in developing countries as it is in the wealthy ones.
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Chakena Conway protests Clinton's speech |
BBC, El Mundo and the Palm Beach Post all reported on the disruption.
On Tuesday, a press conference highlighting the lack of housing for people with HIV and AIDS turned into a 200 person march and rally through the IAC conference center. Raphael, Esther Boucicault of Haiti's pioneering Fondation Esther Boucicault Stanislas and Shirlene Cooper of New York City AIDS Housing Network spoke to reporters about the respective problems of housing in their countries. Demonstrators, holding the banner that had been hoisted at Piot's speech (now fastened together by velcro), won applause from folks in the PWA Lounge, then moved on to the Global Village, an area outside the conference center open to the public. There a die-in took place, with about 40 people—including little people clowns—who also staged another homeless encampment. Screams were heard throughout the center as the "homeless" shouted "Housing is a human right!" and " Que Queremos? Vivienda Digna!" (What do we want? Housing with dignity!).
On Wednesday, 35 people lay outside of conference center windows, and each held a double-sided sign with a single letter of the alphabet written on it. Together, the signs spelled out "People with AIDS Demand Housing" on one side and "Personas Con SIDA Demandan Viviend" on the other. A bullhorn went off every 15 seconds to symbolically acknowledge that a person dies of AIDS every 15 seconds.
Said a Mexican activist who held up the "P" in People and "S" in Personas, "Housing is such an important issue. How can people take their medications if they don't even have a place to put them?"
Throughout the week of IAC, Housing Works encouraged conference attendees to fill out signs that said "People with HIV Demand Housing in " and put the name of the country or city from which they came in the blank space. On Thursday, the signs, filled out by people from Madagascar to South Africa to Uruguay to the Bronx, were posted throughout the IAC convention center, so everyone who passed would understand that people with HIV/AIDS need housing.
UNAIDS Youth Delegate Korey Anthony Chisolm of Guyana grasped the message right away." In Guyana it takes years to get a house," he said. "If I'm living with HIV, and I don't have somewhere to stay, that will affect my health."
Housing Works President and CEO Charles King was pleased that housing advocates were able to make that kind of impression over and over this week. "The seeds were planted to help build housing for people with AIDS into a global movement," he said. "Conference participants will bring back to their home countries the knowledge that housing is essential for not only stopping people with HIV and AIDS from dying, but to allow them to live."
PROTEST PILE-ON
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Abbott playing tug of war |
On Wednesday and Thursday, the final two days of this year’s International AIDS Conference, activists from around the globe took advantage of the fact that the world’s eyes were focused on the Mexico City confab. With conference liaisons looking on to make sure nobody got hurt, demonstrators staged myriad protests, some more genuine than others. (The Update was excited about a female condom protest, until, what do you know? It was sponsored by the makers of female condoms). Here’s a look at some of the IAC’s more notable demonstrations.
Sex work is work! Sex workers and their advocates were out in full force. A group of Mexican sex workers threw up balloons at the opening ceremony and protested when the Mexican health authorities denied them IAC scholarships. Another international coalition of sex workers protested UNAIDS guidelines on Wednesday, and criticized the lack of prevention programs by sex workers, for sex workers. "They're always coming up with programs to save us. They assume if you give sex workers sewing machines, they'll quit sex work. But women are not going to make as much money sewing as they will engaging in sex work," said Susan Lopez, a stripper in the U.S. who is a member of the Desiree Alliance.
1%. That's the percentage of people with HIV being screened for tuberculosis, even though TB is the number one killer of people with AIDS in Africa. On Thursday morning, the Treatment Action Campaign held a silent die-in and march to the booths of the biggest donors and highest burden countries. TB is unrepresented at the IAC, with only seven sessions devoted to the disease (out of hundreds of possible sessions throughout the week).
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Lopez demands rights for sex workers |
Tug of war in Colombia: Activists from Columbia and worldwide staged a "tug of war" outside the IAC press room between faux Abbott pharmaceuticals reps and the Colombian people. They called on Columbia to issue its compulsory license on a drug that can serve as a replacement to the expensive Kaletra. "My government must not let its people die when there exists a simple, affordable solution to helping people with HIV/AIDS live normal lives."
Find the French government!: The notoriously rowdy ACT UP Paris plastered "Wanted!" posters criticizing their health minister for being a no-show at the IAC, for cancelling a press conference with President Nicolas Sarkozy's prepared remarks, and for reneging on paying its fair share—one billion euros a year to the Global Fund. For more pictures and info about the lively demo go to actupparis.org.
Where is my nurse?Advocates for health care workers in Africa, led by Doctors without Borders, had a strong presence at the 2006 IAC in Toronto, but nurses remain grossly underpaid. In Malawi, for instance, they can make as little at $3 a day, according to Dr. Moses Massaquoi of Doctors Without Borders. "It is intolerable to then be told by governments and donor countries that it is unsustainable to raise her wages, even though she is responsible for $7,500 worth of drugs a month for her patients," Massaquoi said.To read more about protests and activist thoughts, check out CHAMP's blog aids2008.com
August 1, 2008
LAST CALL IAC SUMMIT REMINDER!
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Housing is a right! |
You're invited to make history—and waves—at the International AIDS Conference in Mexico City this weekend. The National AIDS Housing Coalition, Housing Works, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Ontario HIV Treatment Network will host the first-ever International Summit on Poverty, Homelessness and HIV/AIDS satellite session at the 2008 International AIDS Conference on Sunday, August 3, 2008 from 1:30 to 3:30 pm in Session Room 7. The session will be conducted in English, Spanish and French.
After the session, participants will march to the IAC offices and present IAC organizers with a declaration demanding that "policy makers address the lack of adequate housing as a barrier to effective HIV prevention, treatment and care; and that all governments fund and develop housing as a response to the AIDS pandemic."
The International Summit on Poverty, Homelessness and HIV/AIDS is the first time an IAC satellite session has addressed the link between AIDS and homelessness. The session will provide a forum for people living with HIV/AIDS and their advocates to exchange information on the critical role that combating homelessness and poverty plays in ending the AIDS pandemic.
While adequate and secure housing has long been recognized as a basic human right, a growing body of research shows that lack of adequate housing is directly related to the spread of HIV, poor health outcomes for people living with HIV, and early deaths from AIDS. While the research has largely been U.S.-focused to date, that needs to change. "It's not just wealthy countries like the U.S. that can address homelessness among people with AIDS. This is an issue that demands global action," said Housing Works President and CEO Charles King.
Session participants include King; Luis Adrian Quiroz, deVVVIMSS (Mexico); Suben Dhakal, Blue Diamond Society (Nepal); Yvette Raphael, JHHESA (South Africa); Esther Boucicault, FEBS (Haiti); Marcelle Brown, Housing Works (United States); Enrique Chavez, AID for AIDS (Peru); Jesus Aguais, AID for AIDS (U.S.); Gina Quattrochi, Bailey House (U.S.); Priya Golapen, Rooftops Canada (Canada); Ernest Hopkins, San Francisco AIDS Foundation(U.S.); and Ruthann Tucker, Ontario HIV Treatment Network (CA).
Demands for housing for people with AIDS won't abate after the satellite session. Housing advocates are planning to make a racket for the rest of the conference, until every one of the thousands of IAC delegates understands the connection between housing and HIV prevention and health care.
For more information about the summit, e-mail Christine Campbell at campbell@housingworks.org.
See you in Mexico City!
July 25, 2008
TALKING ABOUT HOMELESSNESS
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Mexico City: Housing advocates want the IAC to see the big picture |
The link between homelessness and AIDS has for too long been neglected at International AIDS Conferences (IAC) past. But the need for housing as a crucial response to the epidemic will take center stage at the International Summit on Poverty, Homelessness and HIV/AIDS satellite session on August 3 at this year's IAC in Mexico City. The meeting will be held from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. in Session Room 7. Experts hailing from South Africa, Haiti, Thailand, the Caribbean, the U.S. and Canada, as well as homeless people living with AIDS, will speak at the revolutionary meeting to create a plan to address homelessness and poverty as roadblocks to defeating the AIDS epidemic.
After the interactive summit—conducted in Spanish, English and French—participants will march to the IAC headquarters at the conference center and deliver a declaration demanding that "that policy makers address the lack of adequate housing as a barrier to effective HIV prevention, treatment and care; and that all governments fund and develop housing as a response to the AIDS pandemic."
"It's not just wealthy countries like the U.S. that can address homelessness among people with AIDS. This is an issue that demands global action," said Housing Works President and CEO Charles King. A growing body of research has shown the importance of housing for people with AIDS, including a four year study in Chicago, reported on by the Wall Street Journal. The study showed that putting chronically ill people into housing saved lives and taxpayer dollars. For more evidence, click here.
The two-hour Mexico City satellite session is organized by the National AIDS Housing Coalition, Housing Works, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Ontario HIV Treatment Network, with committee members from Thailand, China, Kenya, South Africa, the U.S. and Canada.
Demands for housing for people with AIDS won't abate after the satellite session. Housing advocates are planning to make a racket for the rest of the conference, until every one of the thousands of IAC delegates understands the connection between housing and HIV prevention and health care.
For more information about the summit e-mail Christine Campbell at campbell@housingworks.org
And if you're going to IAC and want to join a network of AIDS advocates preparing for the conference, contact Kaytee Riek at kaytee@healthgap.org to join a pre-conference listserv.
July 18, 2008
FINDING SOLIDARITY IN HAITI
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Housing Works staff in Haiti |
On June 27, a million people turned out for New York City Gay Pride. The rural town of St. Marc, Haiti, has no gay pride parade; coincidentally, however, on that same June day, 18 gay men gathered in solidarity and shared their experiences of gay Haitian life.
The group, which has yet to be named, is the first gay rights organization in Haiti outside of the capital of Port au Prince. At the June gathering, the members shared stories of discrimination and outright violence. One man spoke of having stones hurled at him as he walked down the street. Another talked of his family banishing him from his town.
Like much of the Caribbean, Haiti is hostile to gay rights, and very few people are openly gay. The new group is supported by the Fondation Esther Boucicault-Stanislas (FEBS), an AIDS organization founded by Keith D. Cylar Award winner Esther Boucicault. The group met in a pavilion that is part of a small compound FEBS leases so that people can meet for support activities without worrying about being identified. "This group was marginalized and neglected," Boucicault said."Taking into account that this group is at risk and vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, we wanted to create a space where they can meet, exchange ideas and help them fight against the stigma."
While heterosexual sex is the chief mode of HIV transmission in Haiti—a similar transmission pattern to sub-Saharan Africa, where people have concurrent multiple heterosexual partners—the lack of men who have sex with men in the reported data is likely skewed because of the stigma associated with homosexuality.
"In my own private practice, largely due to our culture, not many people would admit to being gay or to having sex with anyone of the same sex. Homosexuality is completely taboo in Haiti," Fritz Lolagne, who was once a private practitioner in Haiti, told Positively Aware in 2005.
A delegation of Housing Works employees attended the Pride weekend meeting. They happened to be in St. Marc at the time, working on a future business collaboration between Housing Works Thrift Shops and FEBS. "It was really powerful to see the beginning of a gay rights movement in Haiti," said Matthew Bernardo, Housing Works' Senior Vice President for Business Enterprise.
June 13, 2008
PEPFAR'S FINAL HURDLE
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McCain is puzzled about PEPFAR details |
At a town hall meeting in Philadelphia on Wednesday, Sen. John McCain said he would "look into" talking to his Senate buddy Tom Coburn (R-OK), one of the seven Republican senators holding hostage the reauthorization of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The presumptive Republican nominee also admitted he was "not really familiar" with the current reauthorization bill, the Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008. The legislation would expand U.S. funding for HIV/AIDS to $50 billion over five years. McCain's response was reported in the Philadelphia Daily News.
"I was disappointed McCain didn't know more about this battle," said Health GAP organizer Kaytee Riek, who asked McCain to speak to Coburn at the town hall. "It's out there, and very public senior members of the Senate and surrogates of McCain's are blocking the bill." While President Bush views the PEPFAR reauthorization as his legacy, the next president is going to be the one to oversee and implement it. That knowledge means that McCain and Sen. Barack Obama's opinions are immensely important to their respective party's Congresspeople.
Although the PEPFAR reauthorization passed 308 to 116 in the House in March, Coburn and allies Jim DeMint (D-SC), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), David Vitter (R-LA), Jim Bunning (R-KY) and Richard Burr (R-NC) are consciously delaying the vote in the Senate, complaining that the life-saving program is too expensive. The bill needs to pass before the G8 summit on July 7 in order to pressure other countries into increasing their contributions to fighting AIDS, TB and malaria.
On a side note, McCain's staffer also said the candidate would "look into" lifting the federal immigration ban on people with HIV/AIDS that is included in the PEPFAR reauthorization.
All hands on deck
Global AIDS activists are pulling out all the stops to make sure that the historic PEPFAR 2 bill makes it through Congress—especially since the newly foul economic climate could hamper future attempts to pass $50 billion for AIDS. MoveOn.org sent 15,000 signatures asking legislators to pass the bill, and the ONE Campaign already delivered approximately 45,000. Health GAP is helping organize a new series of actions to hold Congress accountable.
Contact Kaytee Riek at kaytee@healthgap.org to find out how you can get involved in their efforts to put pressure on the Senate.
Call Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid—who can make sure seven obstructionist Senators don't block an overwhelmingly bipartisan bill—and say "I am extremely concerned that the Global AIDS, TB and Malaria Reauthorization bill may be held up by seven Senators who are going against the overwhelming majority of Americans and Congresspeople. Will Sen. Reid make sure to push this critical legislation through the Senate in the next few weeks?" You can call Reid's office and speak to staff in D.C. at 202-224-3542.
SHOOTING BACK
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VOCAL member Jones (left) talks to Thai embassy official Atsavaprace about harm reduction |
"Thai government! We are watching you!" That was the relentless refrain of a coalition of some 50 international activists and active drug users from New York who protested outside the Thai embassy in Manhattan on Monday. The demonstrators came out in the scorching heat to demand that the Thai government end the drug war that killed 3,000 people in 2003 and was resurrected this spring. Prime Minister of Thailand, Samak Sundaravej, announced in April that the police would have special powers to track down drug users in order to reduce the demand for drugs.
The protest coincided with the UN High Level Meeting on AIDS, where the Thai government was being lavished in (well-deserved) praised for standing up to pharma and providing antiretrovirals to its citizens. But while new HIV infections in Thailand have declined overall, 50 percent of new infections occur among IV drug users and those numbers are going up. Many drug users were and continue to be systematically denied access to medical care, including HIV medications.
Activists from the Foundation For AIDS Rights in Thailand and Voices of Community Advocates and Leaders (VOCAL) User's Union tried to present Thai embassy officials with boxes of syringes to deliver to the Thai government. Embassy official Pirawa Atsavaprace, who met with protesters, said he'd deliver their message to his higher-ups but refused to deliver the clean syringes back to Thailand. Although needle exchange is illegal in Thailand, Atsavaprace suggested that the Thai activists deliver the syringes to Thai non-government organizations that could distribute them. He said decreasing infections among IV drug users was one of the top five priorities in the country's national AIDS plan. But activist Supatra Nacapew, from the Foundation For AIDS Rights, said the government's actions didn't back this up. "If this was true, they would not implement a policy that hurts IV drug users." Clean needles are sold in pharmacies in Thailand, but drug users risk arrest by purchasing them.
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Heat doesn't stop protesters |
Thanks to quick action on the part of activists to bring international pressure on the Thai government, the latest incarnation of its drug war has thus far been much less violent than in 2003, when suspected drug users were taken from their homes and beaten. However three suspected drug users have died. "We need to keep up the public pressure and show this [policy] conflicts with universal access and public health," said Jennifer Flynn of Health GAP, one of the protest's organizers. Activists from ACT UP/NY, African Services Committee, CitiWide Harm Reduction, Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP), Harm Reduction Coalition, Housing Works, Physicians for Human Rights, and the Thai AIDS Treatment Action Group were also in attendance.
Many of the protesters were with VOCAL, the only U.S. coalition of active drug users. Louie Jones, a VOCAL member and advocacy coordinator, saw parallels between the war against drug users in Thailand and the one in the United States. "Whether you're in Thailand, England or Brooklyn, drug users are the most criminalized group in society," he said.
May 30, 2008
GET READY FOR MEXICO!
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Mark your calendar! |
After you unpack your bags in Mexico City, head to the "International Summit on Poverty, Homelessness and HIV/AIDS" satellite session on August 3 from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Attend this revolutionary meeting at the International AIDS Conference (IAC) to create a plan to address homelessness and poverty as roadblocks to defeating the AIDS epidemic. Click here to read the position paper for the summit.
To contribute to the planning of the session or help draft the declaration, contact Christine Campbell at campbell@housingworks.org or 202-408-0305.
The two-hour summit is organized by the National AIDS Housing Coalition, Housing Works, the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Ontario HIV Treatment Network, with committee members from Thailand, China, Kenya, South Africa, the U.S. and Canada. Participants will work together to develop and present to the IAC a declaration demanding adequate housing as a fundamental human right and an essential element of effective HIV prevention and health care.
"Housing is one of the most important needs for people with HIV to live in dignity, security and keep their health," said Priya Gopalen, the Overseas Program Officer at Rooftop Canada/Abri International and a summit organizer. "The AIDS sector is already stretched providing medical and counseling services to affected families, and housing has not been considered an issue in this mix."
May 8, 2008
AIDS HOUSING GOES GLOBAL
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Housing for people with AIDS is necessary in every country |
When you're at the International AIDS Conference (IAC) in Mexico City in August, don't miss the "International Summit on Poverty, Homelessness and HIV/AIDS" satellite session: This first-of-its-kind meeting will create a strategy for addressing homelessness and poverty as significant barriers to fighting the AIDS epidemic.
The two-hour summit is organized by the National AIDS Housing Coalition, Housing Works and the Ontario HIV Treatment Network, with committee members from Thailand, China, Kenya, South Africa, the U.S. and Canada. Participants will work together to develop and present to the IAC a declaration demanding adequate housing as a fundamental human right and an essential element of effective HIV prevention and health care.
"People living with HIV/AIDS globally always name housing as a priority, but it's often neglected when developing policy," said Housing Works Director of National Advocacy Christine Campbell. "You can't treat people with HIV/AIDS if they're not housed, or if they don't have water. If people don't have a place to take their medication, it's all for naught."
You don't have to wait until August to get involved with the Poverty, Homelessness and HIV/AIDS satellite meeting. Just contact Christine Campbell at campbell@housingworks.org or 202-408-0305.