Howard Brown Health Center ( HBHC ) recently lost funding for transfeminine youth when the U.S. Centers for Disease Control decided not to refund its TWISTA ( TransWomen Informing Sister TransWomen on AIDS ) program.
The grant that made this program possible was a five-year one, and came with approximately $1.6 million in funds.
TWISTA is described on the HBHC website as "HIV intervention program designed to confront some of the many risk factors that make young transgender women of color susceptible to infection with HIV" and a "peer led 6-session group-based intervention" that addressed the needs of transgender women of color between the ages of 16 and 24.
The news came to HBHC sometime in early September, but was not made public until now, when Windy City Times noticed that the program was not listed among other Chicago grantees on the CDC website.
It appears that TYRA ( Trans Youth and Resource Advocacy ) , a program at the Broadway Youth Center for transgender youth ages 13-24 that was partially funded through TWISTA funds, is also threatened. TYRA was funded through a Chicago Department of Public Health grant, according to Lara Brooks, manager of the Broadway Youth Center, where both grants were primarily located.
TYRA was coordinated by Matty Rosado who was also lead facilitator for TWISTA. The non-renewal of the TWISTA grant meant that a significant portion of Rosado's salary would be lost. The CDPH grant for TYRA, which needs to be renewed at the end of every year ( BYC has had it for about six years ) , is not a certainty. This meant that Rosado stood to lose her full-time position and was faced only with a possible half-time position, drawn from TYRA funds, until Dec. 31.
Rosado, however, had been approached by Children's Memorial Life Skills program, a group-based HIV-intervention program directed towards young transgender women of all races, ages 16-24. She started her new position there Oct. 24.
Brooks declined to comment on what staff positions had been affected by the loss, but said that Rosado had resigned.
Speaking to WCT by phone, Rosado confirmed that she had resigned but added that the situation forced her to do so. She described the news of the non-renewal of the CDC grant as a "shocker" and spoke of her and the youth's disappointment.
"I've had a lot of the youth express to me their anger because we didn't get funded," she said. "I told them that granted, I'm not going to be working at the BYC anymore, I still would hope that they would keep TYRA going. … But I also told them that I'm going to be working out of Children's Memorial. I'm going to be doing Life Skills."
Rosado said that the Children's program, run by Robert Garofalo ( formerly also a lead researcher at HBHC ) , did not know about the non-refunding of TWISTA when they contacted her.
According to Rosado, TWISTA lead coordinator Nicole Perez will be out of a job as of Dec. 31. Until then, Perez's position will be funded by leftover funds in the program ( this is not unusual in most grants ) .
Asked how many youth were directly impacted, Rosado said, "From [ TYRA ] , I managed to see over 125 trans youth. I would say about 40 percent of those youth were TWISTA participants. So an actual number, I would have to say would be anywhere between 20 and 30 youth. … For this general cycle. For every cycle we try to enroll at least 12 trans women of color."
Lara Brooks said the services for trans youth would continue despite the grant loss.
"We essentially found out that we did not receive additional monies from the CDC to continue the TWISTA program, so that program will be concluding at the end of this year due to a no-cost extension that we received from the CDC," Brooks said. "So the TWISTA program essentially officially ended September 30 as it relates to providing the group level interventions called TWISTA. But the no-cost extension is giving us some time to conclude some of our trans-specific case management services. But what I'll also say about that is that the research advocacy program, which is the program that provides one-on-one support for people … but case management will continue as normal … so we'll continue to work with the same amount of young people as we did before."
Brooks said that to her knowledge, there had not been a discussion about trying to start TWISTA on another grant or about funding it through other HBHC funds.
WCT contacted Nicole Perez directly for comment, but received response via Marissa Ellenby, assistant account executive at Public Communications Inc., the public relations firm that works with HBHC.
Ellenby said that, "For the last five years, TWISTA has served 182 young transgender women of color and the CDC has applauded the program's success."
"We would like to congratulate those programs that were chosen for the CDC's new initiatives this period, specifically those in Chicago for the extraordinary work they will deliver," Ellenby added. "It is true that we will no longer conduct additional group sessions as part of the TWISTA program. However, because of our commitment to continuing services to transgender people, we will continue to offer group programming and case management services to transgender youth through other HBHC programming."
Asked about the direct impact on BYC staffing and programming, and asked how many staff members would be laid off as a result, Ellenby said that, "delivering transgender specific services will continue to be a priority for Howard Brown Health Center after the TWISTA program has ended. On the question of staffing and specifically layoffs, we know our community understands that having speculative and premature discussions in the media about employee staffing and future services would be a disservice to our employees and the people we serve. More information will be forthcoming at an appropriate time."
Local service providers that did receive the $1.6-million grant this year included Chicago's Center on Halsted and CALOR. Both of those grants, however, are to focus on men who have sex with men, not transgender youth.
The Center will use the grant towards starting the "Mpowerment Project," a program used nationally to combat HIV among young gay and bisexual men. That project will be administered collaboratively between the Center, Affinity Community Services, Chicago House and the Chicago Black Gay Men's Caucus.
As matters stand, there will be no trans-specific youth services funded at HBHC by the end of the year, unless the TYRA grant is renewed by the CDPH.
WCT is following this story closely; the next installment will examine specific consequences for the city's transgender youth.
