The Illinois House Human Services Committee and Senate Appropriations I
Committee, along with the Illinois Black Caucus, held a hearing on HIV/AIDS in the
Minority Community on Nov. 25 at the James R. Thompson Center in downtown
Chicago.
Nearly 50 people representing a host of governmental agencies, HIV/AIDS service
providers and the public, attended the nearly three-hour hearing.
The purpose of the hearing, according to Illinois House Appropriations-Human
Services Committee Chair Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, was to 'find out how we're doing,
what we're doing and what we need to be doing' in terms of HIV/AIDS in the minority
community.
Among the legislatures on hand were Sen. Miguel Del Valle, Rep. Cynthia Soto,
Sen. Harry Osterman, Rep. Calvin Giles, Rep. Constance Howard, Sen. Donne
Trotter, Rep. Monique Davis and Rep. Deborah Graham.
The first part of the hearing focused on testimony from representatives of various
governmental agencies. Addressing the lack of adequate funding in communities of
color despite rising rates of HIV infection, Dr. Whitaker of the Illinois Department of
Public Health told the legislators, 'The dollars have not followed the epidemic.'
The Illinois Department of Corrections' Dr. Willard Elliot told of the Illinois prison
system's 570 prisoners currently taking medications for HIV/AIDS.
Legislatures were shocked to learn that the prisoners don't qualify for Medicare and
that the state's monthly cost for the 570 prisoners' medications are $450,000. The
lawmakers thought the amount was high and vowed to look into finding ways to try
and pool medication costs for the various state agencies.
Other government agencies on hand to testify included the Illinois Department of
Human Services, the Cook County Department of Public Health and the Chicago
Department of Public Health.
The second part of the hearing included testimony from HIV/AIDS service providers
and the public. Betty Smith, executive director of South Side Help Center, spoke of
the frustration of trying to service the entire South Side of Chicago with little funds.
She urged the lawmakers to increase prevention funds and to also make the RFP
(Request for Proposal) process easier for smaller agencies who cannot afford to
hire grant writers.
Ernest Hite of the Greater Chicago Committee urged lawmakers to focus more
efforts on MSM's who continue to be among the highest group in terms of new HIV
infections. AIDS Legal Council's Ann Fisher told of the agency's caseload going up
15-20% recently, having served 700 people with legal problems last year. Although
her agency would receive no funding, she was there to speak to the impact of the
disease in terms of discrimination and prejudice.
A testy moment came when AIDS Foundation of Chicago's Karen Reitan was asked
by Rep. Howard whether 73% of the agency's $4 million annual budget went to
people of color. Reitan did not have the information and Howard asked how she
could not have that information considering the hearing topic.
Many of the agency representatives told of the need for more money for prevention
efforts and the need to restore $1 million in prevention funds earmarked for minority
communities that were removed from the budget earlier this year by Gov.
Blagojevich [the governor did later add it back in].
When asked by Rep. Davis how much money would be adequate for prevention,
Cliff Armstead of Working for Togetherness, replied '$10 million.' Davis then urged
the Black Caucus members to ask for $10 million for next year for prevention efforts.
Representatives from the Southwest Youth Collaborative and Let's Talk, Let's Test
Foundation also testified at the hearing. Ida Smith moved lawmakers with her
testimony of how she, a Black heterosexual woman, was infected by her husband
and spoke of the need to increase efforts to Black women who may feel that they are
not at risk.
Lawmakers planned to use the testimony to help address funding needs of
agencies serving communities of color. Among the ideas proposed by lawmakers
at the hearing were the creation of a task force on HIV/AIDS in the minority
community. Rep. Graham, herself a former social service agency worker at Inner
Voice who dealt with HIV-positive mothers at the agency, said she would introduce
'legislation to put together a task force' on HIV/AIDS in the minority community and
would look into creating a 5-year plan to address the issue.
Rep. Calvin Giles, Joint Chair of the Illinois Black Caucus, said that the testimony
served to 're-freshen ... minds about the severity of the problems in our
communities.'
