The Illinois House Human Services Committee and Senate Appropriations I Committee, along with the Illinois Black Caucus, held a hearing on HIV/AIDS in the Minority Community on Nov. 25 at the James R. Thompson Center in downtown Chicago.

Nearly 50 people representing a host of governmental agencies, HIV/AIDS service providers and the public, attended the nearly three-hour hearing.

The purpose of the hearing, according to Illinois House Appropriations-Human Services Committee Chair Rep. Sara Feigenholtz, was to ‘find out how we’re doing, what we’re doing and what we need to be doing’ in terms of HIV/AIDS in the minority community.

Among the legislatures on hand were Sen. Miguel Del Valle, Rep. Cynthia Soto, Sen. Harry Osterman, Rep. Calvin Giles, Rep. Constance Howard, Sen. Donne Trotter, Rep. Monique Davis and Rep. Deborah Graham.

The first part of the hearing focused on testimony from representatives of various governmental agencies. Addressing the lack of adequate funding in communities of color despite rising rates of HIV infection, Dr. Whitaker of the Illinois Department of Public Health told the legislators, ‘The dollars have not followed the epidemic.’

The Illinois Department of Corrections’ Dr. Willard Elliot told of the Illinois prison system’s 570 prisoners currently taking medications for HIV/AIDS.

Legislatures were shocked to learn that the prisoners don’t qualify for Medicare and that the state’s monthly cost for the 570 prisoners’ medications are $450,000. The lawmakers thought the amount was high and vowed to look into finding ways to try and pool medication costs for the various state agencies.

Other government agencies on hand to testify included the Illinois Department of Human Services, the Cook County Department of Public Health and the Chicago Department of Public Health.

The second part of the hearing included testimony from HIV/AIDS service providers and the public. Betty Smith, executive director of South Side Help Center, spoke of the frustration of trying to service the entire South Side of Chicago with little funds. She urged the lawmakers to increase prevention funds and to also make the RFP (Request for Proposal) process easier for smaller agencies who cannot afford to hire grant writers.

Ernest Hite of the Greater Chicago Committee urged lawmakers to focus more efforts on MSM’s who continue to be among the highest group in terms of new HIV infections. AIDS Legal Council’s Ann Fisher told of the agency’s caseload going up 15-20% recently, having served 700 people with legal problems last year. Although her agency would receive no funding, she was there to speak to the impact of the disease in terms of discrimination and prejudice.

A testy moment came when AIDS Foundation of Chicago’s Karen Reitan was asked by Rep. Howard whether 73% of the agency’s $4 million annual budget went to people of color. Reitan did not have the information and Howard asked how she could not have that information considering the hearing topic.

Many of the agency representatives told of the need for more money for prevention efforts and the need to restore $1 million in prevention funds earmarked for minority communities that were removed from the budget earlier this year by Gov. Blagojevich [the governor did later add it back in].

When asked by Rep. Davis how much money would be adequate for prevention, Cliff Armstead of Working for Togetherness, replied ‘$10 million.’ Davis then urged the Black Caucus members to ask for $10 million for next year for prevention efforts.

Representatives from the Southwest Youth Collaborative and Let’s Talk, Let’s Test Foundation also testified at the hearing. Ida Smith moved lawmakers with her testimony of how she, a Black heterosexual woman, was infected by her husband and spoke of the need to increase efforts to Black women who may feel that they are not at risk.

Lawmakers planned to use the testimony to help address funding needs of agencies serving communities of color. Among the ideas proposed by lawmakers at the hearing were the creation of a task force on HIV/AIDS in the minority community. Rep. Graham, herself a former social service agency worker at Inner Voice who dealt with HIV-positive mothers at the agency, said she would introduce ‘legislation to put together a task force’ on HIV/AIDS in the minority community and would look into creating a 5-year plan to address the issue.

Rep. Calvin Giles, Joint Chair of the Illinois Black Caucus, said that the testimony served to ‘re-freshen … minds about the severity of the problems in our communities.’