AIDS Project LoS AngeLeS 2009 ANNUAL REPORT amount of funding cut from California’s $85,000,000 HIV/AIDS budget in 2009 people now living with HIV/AIDS in the greater 63,000 Los Angeles area Los Angeles residents lost to AIDS since the 31,448 HIV/AIDS epidemic began $0 California’s current HIV prevention budget 14 Lancaster 131388 We proudly share with you our 2009 accomplishments You make this work possible… 14 14 5 210 210 5 people reached with APLA’s HIV San Fernando Valley prevention education in 2009 101101 600,000 Pasadena 210 Claremont 40405 Los Angeles 1010 1010 101 1010 Pomona Santa Monica 111100 71 South Los Angeles 101055 101055 91 40405 710 5 bags of fresh groceries distributed 155 through APLA food pantries in 2009 107,587 22 111100 Long Beach hours of volunteer service donated to APLA in 2009 65,000 hours of mental health counseling in 2009 provided by APLA therapists 4,208 APLA DentAL ServiceS: S. Mark Taper Foundation Center in South Los Angeles learned he was HIV-positive. And framed Superstar), he met partner Rick Granat at road for Vegas. from the bone,” he remembers. “He was wouldn’t feed him. And no one—absolutely Jim Carrozo photos recall the joy of an 18-year rela- a New York talent audition. They quickly “Where didn’t we perform,” Jim laughs. feverish, and I was startled to see white no one—could answer any of our questions tionship with his partner Rick—who got began dating—and launched an act as a “We took the stage at The Comedy Store, fuzz on his tongue. My first thought was, about AIDS.” Step inside Jim’s modest North Holly- a fever, wasted away and abruptly died of comedy duo in the late 1970s, winning over The Sahara, the Playboy hotel chain, ‘My God, these are the symptoms that But at APLA, Jim and Rick found people wood apartment, and it’s easy to become AIDS-related pneumonia in 1986. Yet Jim fans who had never before seen an openly and the Improv. We opened for Jackie we’ve heard about.’” who understood. angry at all that AIDS has taken from him. is decidedly not angry. gay couple. Mason, Joan Rivers…” He spontaneously It was Rick’s diagnosis with AIDS that “APLA volunteers were the first who A bicycle helmet mounted to his wall “Why should I be?” he asks. “I’m 72, “We sang our way out west,” Jim says, launches into song, a Granat & Carrozo first brought Jim to APLA in 1985. actually listened,” he says. “Neither of us marks a life-long passion for riding— my energy is strong, my health has im- “and we put down roots in L.A.” Known original that lightheartedly chides gay “Our lives just stopped,” he recalls. could work, but we got food from APLA’s which ended when HIV weakened his proved—and I have enough crazy stories as “Granat & Carrozo,” they honed their rights foe Anita Bryant. “And we went from headliners to home- pantries. The staff helped us understand hips and worsened his balance. A stack to fill a memoir,” he smiles. act at North Hollywood’s storied Bla Bla But the laughter wouldn’t last. Napping bound in a month.” our treatment options and walked us of travel itineraries charts a successful Jim knows how to get a laugh. A per- Café (along with a then-unknown Robin one afternoon with Rick, who had become Rick was hospitalized, and Jim re- through the process to register for dis- second career as a cruise ship director— former by trade (he was featured in the Williams, with whom they shared the increasingly lethargic, Jim grabbed his members rampant fear: “Hospital staff ability benefits. We would have been lost from which he was fired when colleagues original L.A. casts of Hair and Jesus Christ nightly door proceeds). Then they hit the partner’s arm: “His skin seemed to slough would ‘forget’ to clean his room. Servers without them.” continued on page 8 2 3 FOOD PAntrY: APLA’s Necessities of Life Program site in North Hollywood were and forced G. to eat from disposable “I had withered to under 100 pounds,” a nursing home. While there, she soon son-in-law’s home as his guest. ment,” she says. Medical bills had gone Thelma James plates, she says, “so I knew that my family she says, “and I was weak and very, very discovered that her family had learned “I knew right away that if I got well, I’d unpaid since her son had angrily destroyed was not well equipped to handle his illness.” tired.” Thelma didn’t know that she had little from G.’s death. have nowhere to stay,” she says. her belongings, including her Medi-Cal Thelma was devastated when a bout of the But Thelma never made the trip, fearful been HIV-positive since 1990. Her flu The first thing her sister said when she She did get well and was released—poor, benefits card, upon learning she had HIV. flu forced her to abruptly cancel a flight that her flu would further sicken him. symptoms a decade before, she later real- came to visit Thelma: “I gave your car hungry and unable to work. She spent her “But right away,” she adds, “a counselor from her Michigan home to Los Angeles “I badly wanted to be there with him,” ized, marked her seroconversion: the mo- away, since you won’t be using it.” Her first night asleep in the hospital parking lot helped me access emergency benefits.” in 1990 to care for her close relative, “G.,” she says, “but I couldn’t take the risk.” ment that HIV began its attack on her own brother, on his first visit: “Don’t think until a security guard forced her to leave. She was assigned to an APLA case man- who was battling AIDS. Thelma eventually made it to L.A. years immune system. you’re ever coming back to my house.” And So she stayed a week in a small motel room ager, who coordinated her care and ar- “I was the only family member who of- later, rented a South Bay apartment and “I had pneumonia, thrush, and only 16 her son-in-law, in a phone call: “You’ve with no food until she woke one night to ranged for her to receive a free monthly fered to stay with him,” Thelma remem- started a family. It was in Los Angeles, a t-cells”—which indicated a dangerously probably already infected my children.” find a cockroach crawling into her mouth. bus pass: “Gone were the two-hour walks bers. “As an addiction counselor, I had decade after G.’s death, that Thelma one weakened immune system, she explains— This last rejection was most damning, she A hospital social worker who learned of to the doctor’s office,” she says. experience with people who were HIV- day slumped over her steering wheel, “so I was hospitalized.” Weeks later, with says. Jobless and exhausted just weeks be- her plight referred her to APLA. positive, so I wasn’t afraid.” But others stuck in traffic and unconscious. her prognosis poor, she was released to fore her collapse, she had moved into her “My first stop was the Benefits Depart- continued on page 8 4 5 HOme HeALtH PrOgrAm: Andy Martin’s Studio City Apartment overwhelmed,” he says. “I was shutting down.” native, who had moved to L.A. at the age French-Moroccan eatery. He stored away But the dream was short lived. In both took an HIV test,” he continues. “Bob Andy Martin Under the pressure of his failing health, of 17, enticed by California culture. each night’s generous tips, eventually a frantic, late-night phone call from was negative. I wasn’t.” After a few numb Andy’s home life had begun to splinter. “I learned everything I knew about saving enough to quit full-time work. home, he learned that his mother was moments with the testing counselor, Andy When Andy moved in to a hospital bed in “My partner of eighteen years suddenly California from The Beach Boys,” he He took occasional employment—as ill—and within a day, he was back in Los and Bob drove home. Andy climbed into his mother’s one-bedroom apartment, he found himself living alone in a house laughs. “It was all about freedom, living a concert violinist, a waiter, and even a Angeles to care for her. His world had bed and stayed there for nearly a week. made one firm request: She was to remove built for two,” he explains. “So he sold life on your own terms.” And for Andy, furniture-maker—until a friend offered begun to shatter. In the two years that followed, his the mirrors that hung on each wall. our property and moved from L.A. to the son of a police chief who was “more him a dream job: an assignment hanging He sought escape from long days spent health declined rapidly—night sweats, “I had come there to die,” he remem- Arizona to cut costs.” By the time Andy detective than Dad,” the lure of autonomy designer wallpaper at a Kauai resort. as a caretaker with evening outings to rapid weight loss, nausea—and he began to bers, “and couldn’t bear to watch myself go.” was released to the care of an in-home was especially strong. “Just when I thought it couldn’t get any Hollywood.