Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, November 17, 1994 TAG: 9411210013
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BETH MACY
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The office, which houses support groups and emergency food and medical supplies, was closed for one reason only:
No one was willing to rent the group office space.
``Right or wrong, there are risks; I could be putting my tenants upstairs at risk,'' an Old Southwest property owner told RAP leaders Lee Wonson and Wayne Slusher after showing them downstairs office space on Third Avenue.
A property manager from the Crystal Tower building wanted to know what people with HIV look like.
And the staff at the renovated Jefferson Center said they were concerned about the ``comfort level'' of the tenants already in the building.
Lee Wonson has been working with HIV-infected patients for five years now, as a health department testing clinic director and as chairperson for RAP.
To Crawford's comment about risks, she said, ``But how do you know the people upstairs don't have HIV?''
Asked to describe what her patients look like, she answered, ``Like everyone else.''
And to the Jefferson Center's concerns about comfort level, she told them:
``Our comfort level will improve 1,000 percent. Last Christmas at our old office, it was so cold we wrapped Christmas presents with our gloves on.''
Wonson wasn't surprised by the reaction when she contacted five leasing agents in September to inquire about a small office with heat and handicap accessibility that was near the bus line - and got nowhere. She'd had the same problem last year when the group moved into their old office, which had poor heating and no elevator or ramp.
``It's like racism from the '60s,'' she says. ``We think we've come a long way, but then we realize we still have a long way to go. It's 1994 now, and we're still explaining what people with AIDS look like.''
What do people with HIV look like?
They look like some of the people who work at the Crystal Tower, from whom Wonson got the tip about available office space. They look like some of the people who helped fund the $3.5 million bond issue to renovate the Jefferson Center.
A few are homeless. Some have their quirks. Many have families and go to school and work from paycheck to paycheck.
They look like everybody else.
This latest round in the housing wars disturbs Wonson, and not just because discrimination against people with HIV is wrong - and illegal. It disturbs her because the leasing agents' fears are real.
That HIV clients might drive away other businesses only underscores how much more work she has ahead. ``How are my clients putting others at risk? I'd like an answer to that,'' she says. ``And these people can't give it to me because they haven't bothered to educate themselves.''
It reminds her of the wife of an HIV-infected client who came to her in tears a few months back. The woman was upset because her church had responded to the man's diagnosis by adopting a three-page policy:
No member of the family could drink from the church water fountain. The family had to sit in the back row of the church. And while the children weren't allowed to play on the playground, they could come to church potlucks - but they couldn't bring food themselves.
Wonson offered to do an educational program on HIV for the church; the minister declined. The family has since looked for another church.
Two weeks ago, RAP volunteers were nearly out of the emergency food they'd been keeping in their homes until an office became available. Requests from patients for bedside commodes and wheelchairs had to be put on hold, too, because RAP's supplies were still locked up in storage, out of reach.
Two weeks ago, Wonson wasn't optimistic: ``What I'm looking for is, `Is anybody nice out there?''' she said.
Two days later she called leasing agent Michael L. Smith of Progress Rush Co. about an office on King George Avenue. Wonson waited until the price was negotiated before she lowered the boom.
Smith didn't flinch when he heard the word AIDS. Unlike the others, he didn't try to back out, or say the space was suddenly unavailable. He wrote the lease.
"I really don't care what they look like; this was strictly a business deal," he said later. "I realize you're not going to catch it just being in the same place with someone who has it."
The Roanoke AIDS Project is moving to a new home this week. That's good news for the 600 area people with HIV, their families and the community at large.
But for Wonson, it means there's more work to be done.
``What this tells me is the fight is far from over,'' she says. ``It's still going to be a while before we're ready to hold a Roanoke AIDS Project bake sale in front of Kroger.''
Beth Macy is a Thursday columnist and features department staff writer. For information on HIV, AIDS or the Roanoke AIDS Project, call 345-4850.
by CNB