by Dale Reynolds
AIDS Services Foundation, Orange County (OCASF) does positive
work for people living with HIV/AIDS in the mostly politically
conservative county sandwiched between San Diego on the
south and Los Angeles on the north. Small in comparison
to its neighbors, O.C. has lovely beaches and both upscale
and downscale communities somewhat segregated by ethnicity:
white, Latino, Asian, and black. Headquartered in the planned
community of Irvine, OCASF is led by Indiana-native Alan
Witchey, thirty-six, who has headed up OCASF since June
of last year.
OCASF is an HIV service provider as well as an HIV prevention
center. It handles 1,400-plus active clients and growing,
as O.C. has seen a huge increase in infection rates of
MSMs (men who have sex with men) in the eighteen to twenty-nine
age bracket. “Unhappily, perhaps as many as a third of
those infected are undocumented workers, mostly from Mexico
and the Central Americas,” Witchey says. “Orange County
is seeing higher rates of infections than the nation as
a whole. And most of that for us is from the Latino community—native-born
as well as immigrant.”
This means that, in a time of reduced financial backing
from the feds and the state, more HIVers come under OCASF’s
care. “There’s a severe lack of education about prevention
and treatment within the immigrant population. Some of
them actually come across the border because they’re infected
and can’t get help in Mexico,” he says. “And once here,
some have no way to make a living except hustling sex—and
that includes heterosexual men.” It’s been a learning curve
for Witchey, what with Hispanic Catholics falling so heavily
into the MSM category. “They are just sexual, often married
men who hadn’t [discovered] before about how much they
like having sex with other men. The trouble is, when they
get infected—no condoms allowed by the Church, remember—they
go home and infect their wives and girlfriends. They have
different mores on the subject than most Americans.”
Witchey and OCASF are finding that “on a national level,
almost half of new infectees self-identify as MSM. And
it translates to more infections within the gay community
here. We’re trying to identify the reasons why that is
happening.” Part of it, apparently, is that there is less
education on the subject today in O.C. than a decade ago.
Witchey explains: “Awareness dollars have been reduced.
For instance, a gay bar or establishment today is unlikely
to see any preventative information on display. It’s a
step back in time to 1985.”
Another cause has to do with substance abuse, especially
crystal meth, a popular drug of choice among some members
of the gay community. “An entire generation of young gay
men, who didn’t live through the early years in which massive
amounts of friends died, don’t effectively know how much
at risk they are,” Witchey laments. “We’ve promoted a longer-life
scenario, but youths simply don’t think of it as a death
sentence—it’s a manageable disease to them and far too
many think there’s a cure in sight. But there isn’t.” And
add to that how some older gays have tired of safer sex,
thinking that the problem should be fixed by now, coupled
with nationwide donor and volunteer fatigue, and you have
a looming crisis.
OCASF works on a reduced annual budget of just under $6
million, but this isn’t enough to effectively fund prevention,
he stresses. “We’re asking for more grants, including an
application to the CDC to [conduct] outreach to youth.
We need to create social situations that will draw them
in [as] we’ve found that the education process works better
with peer-to-peer advocacy. We’d like to create a youth
center that allows sex education for both girls and boys.
We must create a norm in our culture that being active
in a safe way is okay—but we’re not there right now.”
The proceeds from the February 7th Art for AIDS event,
which Queer Eye’s Kyan Douglas [A&U, April 2004] attended
and Dame Elizabeth Taylor [A&U, February 2003] a constant
supporter, were split with the Laguna Beach Art Museum,
netting each $250,000, an amount that will help somewhat
in replacing the large part of OCASF’s budget that used
to come from now-diminishing public monies, such as Ryan
White funds (O.C. as a whole suffered a $700,000 cut for
2004–05). Those cuts have forced OCASF to pull back on
food distribution, transportation for clients, mental health
appointments, and adherence treatment support. “To fill
up that gap, we’re going back to private donors, but it
won’t be enough this year,” Witchey says. And what’s worse
is that it falls on top of a $400,000 reduction from last
year. “Bottom line: More HIVers won’t get food and
won’t be able to make their doctor’s appointments.”
Dale Reynolds interviewed Queer Eye’s Kyan Douglas for
the April issue.
May 2004
