BEING ALIVE SAN DIEGO
by Tawny McCray
With approximately 15,000 people living with HIV/AIDSin San Diego,and with millions infected and dying from it all over the world, it would seem that a service like Being Alive San Diego would be welcomed with no hesitation.
But according to Vique Chavez, Peer Advocacy Coordinator at Being Alive, “We can’t even put a sign out front. Once it comes out that you’re doing HIV services, most people don’t want it in their neighborhood.”
Being Alive San Diego is a non-profit organization that works to enrich and enhance the personal dignity and quality of life of people living with AIDS and HIV through mutual support, access to information, public advocacy and social interaction.
It began in August 1989 with six people and now assists over 3,000 people annually.
“We serve a variety of people,” Chavez said, “gay, straight, men, women, people of different socioeconomic backgrounds.”
Chavez added their demographics fall right on target with the national demographics, meaning 20 percent of their clients are African American or Latino, 10 percent are women and the rest tend to be white males.
The majority, she says, are gay, white males, ages 24 to 50.
The average client “lives on about 800 bucks a month in social security and disability,” Chavez said. “Once you reach an AIDS diagnosis you are disabled and you do qualify for those programs.”
For many of their clients, this is the only resource they have. The reason, Chavez said, is because of “the chronic fatigue they feel, their inability to concentrate and dementia. It can wipe out people’s careers.”
When a client signs up with Being Alive, everything is kept confidential. From the demographic information only, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is able to track who is becoming infected.
Chavez added that those newly infected are Latino women, black women, and black men, in that order.
“Fifty percent of all newly infected people are African American,” she said. “Fifty percent! But it’s because advertisements and awareness has not been targeted to certain populations and certain groups. Whereas the awareness has been around for 15 to 20 years in the gay population.
Another population Being Alive assists that hasn’t been targeted is the Deaf community living with HIV. Chavez said that since nothing has been targeted to the Deaf, many of them may have the understanding that only hearing people get HIV.
“We need to raise awareness in all communities who have otherwise not had access to information,”she said.
Being Alive provides many services to its clients.
Peer Advocacy, which Chavez oversees, consists of volunteers who go through extensive training and have been living with HIV for at least three years.
“We are a shoulder to cry on,” Chavez said. “We can be someone who understands where they’re at and how they’re feeling.”
Support groups include a newly diagnosed group for those recently infected, a woman’s group and an open group for anyone who is HIV positive.
Clients receive food every month, usually non-perishable items like canned goods, cereal, juice and pastas, and can receive free haircuts given by volunteers.
Moving Services are also free because, Chavez said, “that’s really stressful. We have boxes and movers.”
For the fun stuff, they haveSocial and Recreational services, offering client’s concert, sports and symphony tickets. There areeven circus tickets, “for people who have kids,” Chavez said.
“A lot of our clients are isolated,” she said, “I mean they don’t come out for anything, not family or friends. It could be for facial wasting, for the fact that they have lost their looks completely or because they just don’t want to deal with other people asking questions. So we really encourage social outlets.”
Aside from getting clients out of social isolation, Chavez said it’s important for them to adhere to their drug regimen.
She said what they are finding is there are people who are resistant to all the classes of drugs and they have nowhere to turn to keep them alive. So they have to either go on some severe drugs with huge side effects or they may not have any class of drug they can count on and will die from it.
“A lot of AIDS medications out there are very toxic to the body,” Chavez said. “So while people are living longer, 20 to 25 years now, the changes to their body are horrendous. Everything from facial wasting and not being able to walk to losing the muscle mass and fat in the body and having it be distributed to like a Buffalo hump in the stomach or back.”
Chavez said practicing safe sex is also important. Statistics show that 70 percent of all people living with HIV and AIDS also are co-infected with genital herpes and 40 to 60 percent are co-infected with hepatitis C.
Although San Diego has been hard hit this year budget wise- $1 million just got cut out of the AIDS programs budget and a lot of programs have been cut, the state’s budget has been pushing for prevention for positives.
“It’s positive people who are positive and don’t know it who infect other people,” Chavez said. “Statistics are 900,000 people in the United States are positive and of those 300,000 do not know it.”
For Sean, who has been going to Being Alive for 10 years and has lost two lovers to AIDS, the organization has been “a life preserver, an anchor” of support, information and referrals.
His 30th High School Reunion is coming up, something he is especially looking forward to because he thought he’d never make it: “I was sick as a dog and couldn’t go to my 20th.”
He says “it’s a brighter day now,” for those living with AIDS and says it’s so important to “keep your sense of humor. We all need to be aware and mindful of loving ourselves as we are.”
Being Alive is located at 4020 Centre Street, near El Cajon Blvd. and Park Blvd. Their telephone number is 291-1400.