[Disclaimer: I have no connection to Vermont CARES, never served on their Board, never worked for them, never used their services, never even volunteered. I’ve made an occasional donation, and I’ve written about the agency before elsewhere (see the link below). I wrote this because even a temporary shutdown due to a major but relatively short-term funding shortfall will leave clients with nowhere to go.]
1986 was a watershed year for the gay and lesbian communities in Vermont. Among other advocacy organizations founded that year was Vermont CARES (Committee on AIDS Resources, Education, and Services) — back when a lot of the stigma attached to AIDS was because of its spread among gay men. Democratic activist Terje Anderson was one of the founders, along with Keith Goslant, among others. They were the first group to offer “safe sex” information and workshops to Vermonters based on current medical fact rather than scare tactics.
Now Vermont CARES is in its 21st year, and has been serving people with HIV/AIDS way beyond the gay community for a long time. A couple of years ago, under then-director Kendall Farrell, the agency opted not to apply for federal funds for prevention because accepting the money meant also accepting intrusive federal regulations on data reporting and requirements for Bush-administration-beloved “abstinence only” education, among other things.
Today, Vermont CARES has scraped a pretty deep hole through and below the bottom of the barrel — to the tune of $100K. It’s not just because of the federal funding they opted to forego. Add to that the shift in funding by a few major foundations away from “service” to “policy,” and the decreasing attention to the domestic disease in public awareness, and you’ve got a “perfect storm” creating a huge hole where a budget used to be.
Three other factors: First, AIDS is no longer a death sentence — it doesn’t carry that tragic “zing” factor of young lives cut short. Now we’re looking at — and Vermont CARES is supporting — the survivors of the early years who are in their fifties and sixties and dealing with both the disease and the decade or more of side effects from anti-retroviral meds, the famous “cocktail.”
The disease is about as sexy as Alzheimer’s, but mostly without so much dementia. Treatment side effects include lipodystrophy (migration of body fat in ways that might disfigure) and neuropathy (the often painful loss of sensation and sometimes of autonomic responses in the nervous system, typically hands and feet, but not always). Add in potential liver damage, cardiovascular stress, and clinical depression, and that’s a lot of now-chronic health issues to deal with that carry absolutely no zing.
Points two and three below the fold, along with what you can do to help, should you be so moved.
Second, most of the public’s limited attention for AIDS has turned overseas, specifically to Africa, which needs all the first world attention it can get, especially when that attention includes help with expensive medicines. It’s a good thing, and thanks to the William and Melinda Gates Foundation, among others, that help is happening. And, unfortunately, people here forget that they can have a positive impact two doors down the street as well as thousands of miles away on another continent.
Third, there are many more places in Vermont now where people at risk for HIV can get tested and treated without running a gauntlet of prejudice and disapproval, particularly if they have health insurance. That’s another good thing. But what it means is that the insured now go to Fletcher Allen, for example, while the uninsured, disabled, and unemployed go to CARES. Something like 90% of CARES’ clients make less than $12k a year.
CARES runs the only specialized combined AIDS residence in the state — in Fort Ethan Allen in Colchester. It runs another ten scattered residences housing 20-25 people and subsidizes housing for another 30-40 people.
It was the first to offer rapid testing with results in 20 minutes instead of the two weeks it used to take, and that has resulted in many more people getting tested because they don’t have to live in uncertainty for days on end.
CARES fills in the gaps for people whose lives are full of potholes: whose electricity gets turned off because a medicaid payment was late, and the money for the electric bill was used to fill in; or whose choice is between paying for transportation to medical appointments and buying groceries. They subsidize food and actual meals for those who need it, and have partnered with the Intervale Society to provide organic veggies when available.
There’s way more to this story in terms of the services CARES provides, but let me close with one really important one: CARES makes it possible for Vermonters with HIV/AIDS — some of whom live in the back end of beyond, far away from Burlington or Montpelier or Rutland, in places like Highgate, Derby Line, Coventry, Montgomery, Eden, Troy, Middletown Springs, Fayston, Worcester, Corinth — to be able to talk to others in the same boat when they can’t talk to their friends and neighbors about the elephantine impact of this disease in their lives.
The agency has a plan for the future and a funding source that doesn’t kick in until the new fiscal year begins on October 1. In the meantime, I’m writing a check (scroll down for the address of the main office in Burlington) and asking friends and allies to do the same. If enough folks each help out some, the hole below the barrel will get filled in and the barrel bottom patched and waterproofed, with maybe a gallon or two to keep CARES going.
NanuqFC
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. — George Orwell
This is the question being asked by Robert Letzler, as reported in the 
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