Linda Coon is the project director of the Families' and Children's AIDS Network (FCAN) . She traveled with a group of HIV advocates to Springfield last week. Below are her thoughts on the experience.
By Linda Coon
"If the choice is her medication or our housing, we will be homeless."
That was an actual quote from an HIV-negative man who was speaking on behalf of...
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Julie Davids, at center with sign, and other AIDS activists joined Occupy Wall Street last week. (Photo courtesy of Kaytee Riek)
AIDS activism has a rich history of taking advocacy to the streets, into city halls and state houses, and into American consciousness.
Last week, veterans of ACT UP — the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power — joined the Occupy movement...
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Advocate Renee Radosz, at right, speaks to Rep. Mary Flowers about opposing cuts to HIV services. AFC Photos-Ed Negron
The advocates woke in the dark before dawn and trudged half-asleep onto a bus bound for Springfield.
Bound together by a single purpose, they came from Chicago’s distinct neighborhoods, from the rural communities of southern and western Illinois,...
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It was a busy week in the news for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) and its network of advocates.
On Wednesday, about 200 hundred HIV/AIDS advocates traveled to Springfield, for AFC's annual Lobby Day, to fight the proposed $4 million in HIV service cuts. At the same time, Gov. Pat Quinn has proposed a plan to cut $1.3 billion from the state's Medicaid program. Many of...
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Take seven minutes of your day and watch this video on what the proposed budget cuts to HIV services would mean for people in Illinois.
On Wednesday, hundreds of Illinois HIV/AIDS advocates will travel to Springfield, Ill., to oppose the devastating $4 million in proposed budget cuts for HIV services.
Gov. Pat...
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Tim Egan, 42, is currently training with the TEAM TO END AIDS (T2) for the Chicago Triathlon and the Steelhead 70.3 Ironman race.
It will be his third straight year participating in races to raise money and awareness for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago. Not bad for someone who has never considered himself an athlete.
“My main motivation is to raise as much money as I possibly...
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Keri Rainsberger is director of data services at AFC. AFC Photos-Ed Negron
By Eva Westley
It’s not the most glamorous work: keeping track of visits to case managers, trips to the hospital, viral loads and housing applications for the thousands of people with HIV in Chicago.
But with government officials, funders, researchers and the members...
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Youth gather for The Night Ministry's outreach services in Boystown. AFC Photos-Ed Negron
On a brisk early April night in Boystown, with a nearly full moon tilted in the sky, a group of teens — many of them homeless — waited in a parking lot on the corner of Belmont and Halsted.
Within minutes, two vans belonging to The Night Ministry pulled up to the...
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For the 1.2 million Americans living with HIV, the Affordable Care Act will be utterly life-changing. For some, it will be life-saving.
Just ask Will Wilson, 58, who was diagnosed with "full-blown AIDS" in 2002.
"It will basically mean freedom," said Wilson, a Chicago resident and an advocate for the Illinois Alliance for Sound AIDS Policy.
For the first time,...
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David Ernesto Munar, president/CEO of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, speaks at the 2012 Dinner with Tony Kushner. AFC Photos-Ed Negron
Below are David Ernesto Munar's remarks from the AIDS Foundation of Chicago's 2012 Dinner with Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner, who wrote Angels in America. The dinner was held on March 27, 2012, at the Hilton Chicago, and raised...
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