AIDS Foundation Chicago served nearly 9,000 clients last year with services like case management, housing, and behavioral health care. We know that housing is health care, and when people are stably housed they are able to achieve better health and thrive. Please make a donation to AFC this holiday season to support our clients and our work to end the HIV epidemic and homelessness. At this critical time in the history of our movement, your support is more important than ever.
Recently, AFC housing and behavioral health client David reached out to share his story. He was diagnosed with HIV in 1992 and given six months to live. David’s perseverance and survival against the odds are representative of our collective struggle.
David comes from a theater and acting background as well as an Evangelical Christian family. He was diagnosed with HIV in his early 30s. David recounted with tears how an illness resulted in a high fever that would not abate, and eventually a hospital stay. Three days before Christmas in 1992, he received his HIV diagnosis while hospitalized. David reflects:
“I felt like I was in my own movie, but I didn’t audition for this one.”
Despite the pervasive stigma and fear of HIV at the time, which persists in part to this day, David’s mother and church community rallied around him and provided him with loving support. Over the years, both David and his mother became active in the HIV movement.
“I wanted to turn my mess into a message,” he says. David worked with the Red Cross and consulted for the groundbreaking exhibit AIDS: The War Within at the Museum of Science and Industry, the first museum exhibition about HIV in the country. David’s mother was a speaker at the first ever World AIDS Day observance in their hometown of Wheaton.
David remains energetic and engaging to this day, a religious man with a sparkle in his eye and a penchant for joke-telling. But his journey was not without challenges. Living with HIV and maintaining medication routines, enduring side effects, and making appointments was an all-consuming task, and it was challenging to make ends meet.
After his home suffered damage from a flood, he was left with nowhere to live. “FEMA and insurance didn’t cover it, and this was during the housing crunch,” he says. “It was a painful thing.”
He connected with AIDS Foundation Chicago, who helped David stabilize through housing, and receive supportive services like mental health care with home visits from AFC’s behavioral health team. David credits his faith, family, and AFC with helping him survive the 33 years since his diagnosis. AFC helped him secure housing, stay connected to medical care, and get coverage for medications, behavioral and mental health care, and legal assistance.
“It’s great to have someone say, ‘You don’t have to go through this alone.’ I felt like I had a champion in my corner. It’s been a blessing,” says David.
Over 90% of AFC’s case managed clients like David have achieved viral suppression, meaning the levels of HIV in their body are undetectable, and they cannot transmit the virus to others.
David says of his case manager Jasmine, “She’s been like a mentor to me; she keeps me guided and focused.”
AFC case managers like Jasmine have assisted David and other AFC clients with securing housing, staying connected to medical care, getting coverage for medications, behavioral and mental health care, and legal assistance.
From all of us at AFC, we wish you and your loved ones peace and happiness this holiday season.
Please give today to fuel our fight for health, housing, and justice, so we can realize our goal of ending the HIV epidemic in Chicagoland, Illinois, and beyond.
AFC Communications are not supported by federal funds.
