The Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation (SAAF) held its 21st annual AIDSWALK Sunday, Oct. 11, raising $158,000 to help fund its programs and services, many of which are focused on South Tucson residents.
Participants will continue to fund-raise online throughout the month. All proceeds from the walk go directly into the SAAF general fund and will be used to help fund a low-cost housing complex just outside of South Tucson for people living with HIV/AIDS.
The organization already owns 83 similar units in undisclosed
locations throughout Tucson. Many residents who are strapped for cash
because of the high cost of treating the disease, are asked to pay 30
percent of their monthly income for the housing. Residents of SAAF
housing units typically pay between $120 and $170 each month in rent,
said Michele Bart, director of development at SAAF. Eligibility to live
in a unit is based on financial need, and demand is very high, Bart
said.
“There is a huge waiting list right now for units, and we aren’t seeing a lot of turnover, probably because of the economy,” Bart said. “It’s a good thing because these clients are in stable living situations right now, but we desperately need to expand.”
The new $2 million complex will feature 16 housing units and a large kitchen where SAAF will house its Food for Life meal delivery program. Staff and volunteers at Food for Life deliver three freshly-made meals each day to SAAF’s homebound clients.
Though SAAF will rely on federal funding to build the complex, fundraisers like the AIDSWALK help provide the money needed to purchase the land and hire architects to design the property. Both of these steps, Bart said, are nearing completion for the new complex and SAAF will begin the process of applying for federal funds at the beginning of next year.
SAAF was formed in 1997 when three other HIV/AIDS foundations merged in what was one of the largest non-profit consolidations in the history of Pima County. Today, SAAF is the only community-based organization in Southern Arizona providing services for people living with HIV/AIDS and their families, and what the foundation calls “culturally appropriate prevention.”
“Different cultures have different levels of acceptance when it comes to the homosexual lifestyle [a risk factor for HIV/AIDS],” Bart said. “It’s important that we reach all of these groups with our services in a culturally sensitive way.”
The organization’s prevention programs target high-risk groups such as African-American, Native American and Hispanic communities, as well as intravenous drug users, men who have sex with men and individuals re-entering society from prison, Bart said.
“Culturally appropriate prevention is when we are tailoring our message to our audience,” said David Martinez, program manager for the Men’s Sexual Health and PersonaEmpowerment (MSHAPE) program at SAAF. “With the Hispanic and Native American communities we find that it’s a trust issue. They want to hear about HIV from someone like them.”
Maintaining a diverse, bilingual staff and ensuring that all materials SAAF distributes are full of local facts are key to providing culturally appropriate prevention, Martinez said.
“If we go in and say there are a million people in the United States with AIDS, it doesn’t mean as much as if we can say ‘100 of your neighbors here in South Tucson are HIV-positive,” Martinez said.
Research by the Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS has concluded that although predominantly Hispanic communities such as South Tucson are known to be at a greater risk for HIV/AIDS, accurate statistics are difficult to come by because Hispanic youth are less likely to be insured and often lack access to quality medical care. Because of this, HIV infections are known to be severely underreported.
“Our goal is to give these at-risk populations the tools they need to avoid contracting HIV before they put themselves at risk,” Bart said.
In 2010, SAAF will reach out to the Hispanic community in particular, as Arizona becomes one of the first two states in the nation (alongside Georgia) to form a task force dealing specifically with AIDS and Hispanic culture; the Arizona Latino HIV/AIDS Action Network. The task force’s first project will be compiling a list of resources, in Spanish, that point HIV-positive people toward places they can seek help regardless of immigration status.
“Immigration is another big barrier for the Latino community when it comes to HIV. A lot of times the non-U.S. citizens can’t get all the help they need from the federally-funded organizations,” said Martinez, who will head the task force.
This year, SAAF is hoping that proceeds from the walk and online fundraising will total $215,000, topping last year’s $201,000. According to Bart, it’s a lofty goal.
“We have so many areas of priority right now, and as need for our services continues to go up and up, funding just keeps going down and down,” Bart said.
Among those areas of priority is the foundation’s complementary therapies program, which was recently suspended for lack of funding for the first time in the program’s 12-year history. The complementary therapies program made alternative health care services such as massage and acupuncture available to SAAF’s clients. The cost of these therapies is often prohibitive to people with HIV/AIDS, but the therapies have proven invaluable for pain management.
“My guess is that most people accessing these programs will most likely not be able to continue to utilize the services through their own financial means,” said Wendell Hicks, executive director of SAAF.
In addition to using AIDSWALK funds to help bring back the complementary therapies program, SAAF hopes the money raised from this and other fund-raisers will help the organization further its education and outreach programs, continue to deliver meals and hire additional staff.
AIDS service organizations like SAAF save Arizona taxpayers more than $38.4 million in avoidable hospital costs each year, concluded a 2009 study by the Southwest Center for HIV/AIDS. For SAAF, the success of the AIDSWALK is crucial to the organization’s work: more than 25 percent of SAAF’s total annual budget is raised at the event.
“We are just as challenged in this economy as any nonprofit organization,” Bart said. “But we are still making incredible progress. We keep going because we are getting somewhere. That’s why we are finally able to call it ‘living with’ rather than ‘dying of ’ AIDS.”
