Annual Report 2018-2019
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ANNUAL REPORT 2018-2019 1 2 CONTENTS A Letter from Our Executive Director 4 A Letter from the Chair of the Board 5 Our Namesakes 6 Celebrating Our History: 50 Years of LGBTQ Health 8 Timeline 12 Reflections on our History 14-17 Our Patients 18 A Year in Photos 22 Our Staff 24 Callen-Lorde Brooklyn 26 Board of Directors 28 Senior Leadership 29 Howard J. Brown Society 30 Our Supporters 32 ABOUT US Callen-Lorde is the global leader in LGBTQ healthcare. Since the days of Stonewall, we have been transforming lives in LGBTQ communities through excellent comprehensive care, provided free of judgment and regardless of ability to pay. In addition, we are continuously pioneering research, advocacy and education to drive positive change around the world, because we believe healthcare is a human right. 3 A LETTER FROM OUR EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Dear Friends, Supporters, and Community Members, Fifty years ago, Sylvia Rivera and Marsha P. Johnson were among the first brick throwers in the Stonewall Rebellions, igniting the fire that began – slowly – to change LGBTQ lives. That same year, the beginnings of Callen- Lorde started when two physicians opened the St. Mark’s Health Clinic to provide free healthcare services to the ‘hippies, freaks, and queers’ in the East Village. Today, that little clinic is Callen-Lorde Community Health Center - a network of health centers soon to be in three boroughs of New York City and improving LGBTQ health worldwide. What has not changed in 50 years is our commitment to serving people regardless of ability to pay, our passion for health equity and justice for our diverse LGBTQ communities and people living with HIV, and our belief that access to healthcare is a human right and not a privilege. In the pages of this report you will meet some of the people who played pivotal roles in the journey of Callen-Lorde and its predecessor organizations. As we live through this moment in history in which we are seeing erasure of progress, it’s especially important that we recognize and remember the incredible reliance and brilliance of our communities. I hope you enjoy and are touched by these stories as much as I have been. Thank you so much for being a part of building the world in which we want to live. We are incredibly grateful for your support, which makes this work possible. Yours in hope and solidarity, Wendy Stark Executive Director 4 A LETTER FROM THE CHAIR OF THE BOARD Dear Friends, Supporters, and Community Members, We live during a period when the LGBTQ+ community is under assault like never before. This climate of hate disproportionally affects those of us who are most marginalized: trans youth, trans women of color, immigrants, the homeless, the poor, and so many more groups otherwise outside the mainstream. But we can only survive, and then thrive, if we are healthy. Each day, Callen-Lorde reaffirms our dedication to providing high quality, compassionate healthcare to the LGBTQ+ community of New York City regardless of ability to pay. Each client we treat is an act of resistance. We have served this community for 50 years and are determined to continue, most notably with the upcoming 2020 opening of our new facility in downtown Brooklyn, ultimately increasing our capacity by 60- 70,000 visits per year. I am deeply grateful for your support. Together, we will continue to work in the service of our mission to achieve health equity and justice for our communities. Thank you. Laura A. Jacobs, LCSW-R Chair, Board of Directors 5 OUR NAMESAKES We stand on the shoulders of our namesakes – musician, safer sex and AIDS advocate, Michael Callen; poet and civil rights activist, Audre Lorde; and lesbian psychotherapist, Thea Spyer. 6 MICHAEL CALLEN AUDRE LORDE THEA SPYER (1955-1993) (1934-1992) (1931-2009) Michael Callen was born The daughter of Thea Spyer, Ph.D was in Rising Sun, Indiana, Caribbean immigrants, a brilliant psychologist, and began his career as Audre Lorde was born avid violinist, golfer and a successful composer in New York City and dancer. Born to Elisabeth and singer. In 1982 he wrote her first poem Ketellapper and Willem was diagnosed with at age twelve. In the Spyer in Amsterdam, Dr. AIDS (then known as 1950s while at Hunter Spyer immigrated to the Gay-Related Immune College, Audre worked as US States during World Deficiency) and quickly a librarian and educator War II. In 1963 she met became a leader in the and became a leader in Edie Windsor, who soon response to the growing the early lesbian activist become her partner for epidemic. In 1985 he community in Greenwich the remainder of her became a founding Village. Her poetry was life. Dr. Spyer earned member of the People published regularly her Ph.D. in Clinical with AIDS Coalition, throughout the 1960s Psychology from Adelphi the first organization and 70s and gained wide University. She interned to spring from the AIDS recognition with the at St. Vincent’s Hospital selfempowerment publication of her book and the NYC Veterans movement. As a The Cancer Journals in Administration, and later leading authority in the 1980, which chronicled became Director of the community, Michael her experience with Psychiatric Clinic at the was called to testify breast cancer. In this International Center for before the President’s groundbreaking work, the Disabled. She was Commission on AIDS she examined her then Clinical Consultant and both houses of own fears, anger and in Rehabilitation at Congress. In 1990 ultimately, her strength St. Vincent’s Hospital Michael chronicled the and hope. Her published Westchester before stories of long-term writings include nine concentrating survivors in his book volumes of poetry and exclusively on her private Surviving AIDS. With five books of prose. practice, where she Peter Allen and Marsha Audre was named cared for her patients Malamet, he co-wrote New York State’s Poet until she passed away the song “Love Don’t Laureate in 1991 by from aortic stenosis in Need a Reason” and Governor Mario Cuomo, 2009 at the age of 77. was a founding member a post she retained until of the a capella group her death at age 58 after The Flirtations. Michael a 14-year struggle with continued his work in the breast cancer. She is community and in music survived by her children, until his death at age Elizabeth and Jonathan, 38. He is survived by his and her partner, Dr. partner, Richard Dworkin. Gloria Joseph. 7 CELEBRATING OUR HISTORY: 50 YEARS OF LGBTQ HEALTH In many ways, the history of Callen-Lorde mirrors the communities of those we serve: a history of oppression, struggle and pain, but also one of resilience, beauty, and strength. 8 In 1969, just shy of 6 months after Stonewall, two young doctors started the St. Marks Clinic (also known as ‘St. Marks Free Clinic’ and ‘St. Marks Community Clinic) at 44 St. Marks Place, the epicenter of East Coast counter culture. The mission of the clinic was to provide free healthcare to young people and people in the neighborhood, who, at the time, consisted largely of ‘hippies,’ ‘freaks,’ and ‘queers.’ The majority of the patients were between 16-25 years of age, and came in droves for STI treatment, abscesses from needles, substance use detox, birth control, and mental health counseling. The concept of this type of healthcare – the notion of healthcare as a human right, one to be provided without judgment, and without pay – was radical. While much else has changed, our ethos remains the same today. In the early 1970’s, a group of seven queer women banded together to create the Women’s Health Collective – the “Oldest Lesbian Clinic in the Nation” at St. Marks. In the later 1970’s, the Women’s Collective expanded and took over St. Marks, building their own location on 2nd Avenue and 2nd Street. Their vision was to break down the barrier between provider and patient. They were anti-establishment, anti-racist, and rooted in health justice. Meanwhile, in 1972, a group of three friends – Leonard Ebreo, Marc Rabinowitz, and Perry Brass – founded the Gay Men’s Health Project (GMHP). None had a background in healthcare, but they felt the need to reduce shame, fear and stigma about gay bodies and gay sex, which they knew were leading to poor health outcomes for themselves and their peers. They opened in an unfinished concrete basement at 247 West Eleventh Street in Greenwich Village. They held forums with various speakers on venereal diseases (sexually transmitted infections, or STIs) and advocated using condoms, which were only previously associated with birth control. They taught themselves how to swab, screen and diagnose STI’s, and would refer patients who tested positive to licensed clinics. Many were referred to St. Marks, which would eventually lead to a more codified relationship between the two. Both the Women’s Health Collective and Gay Men’s Health Project pioneered the idea that healthcare could not only be inclusive of queer people, but provided by queer people. In 1983, to pool resources in response to the growing AIDS epidemic, the St. Marks Clinic merged with Gay Men’s Health Project to create Community Health Project, Inc. (CHP). CHP took up space (squatted) at 208 West 13th Street in Greenwich Village – a building which would later become “The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center.” 9 The 1980’s were a devastating time, and CHP was seeing patients suffering from HIV-related illness in droves. In 1985, with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, CHP opened the nation’s first community-based HIV clinic in conjunction with Bellevue Hospital.