Bay Windows - Local News, September 26, 1999
Peter Cassels, Bay Windows staff

The move also has revived a debate over whether the "AIDS industry," which includes large, bureaucratic, government-funded AIDS service providers with highly-paid staffs, can adequately meet the needs of people with HIV.

Rhode Islanders Taking Action (RITA), a support organization staffed entirely by volunteers that stepped in five years to fill in a gap in services provided by bigger agencies, temporarily closed RITA's Place at One Allens Avenue, not far from downtown Providence, Sept. 1. Its programs are reopening in phases at another location in the city. The Woonsocket-based Northern Rhode Island Community Mental Health Center (NRICMHC) took over the agency in April because of financial difficulties. It made no public announcement and changed the locks, allegedly without notifying gay organizations that used the space for offices and meetings. Rumors circulated that RITA's had closed permanently. An e-mail "obituary" transmitted the same day on an Internet service for the state's gay and lesbian community created surprise and confusion, according to community leaders.

RITA's is a referral service that operates a free food pantry, a drop-in center providing about 120 clients a week with prevention, education and peer support, and a "health corner," providing nutritional and medication information, counseling and professional advice from pharmacists and nurses. Those programs will continue with the relocation and merger of RITA's with a multicultural center for people with HIV the NRICMHC operates at 280 Broadway near downtown Providence. A program that pays for prescriptions clients need that are outside the "AIDS formulary," (treatment drugs such as protease inhibitors) was to be suspended indefinitely because of a lack of funding. The program, which picks up the costs of non-formulary prescriptions such as antidepressants and seizure medications that insurance programs don't cover, has been given a 60-day reprieve. Christian Stephens, NRICMHC executive director, told Bay Windows Sept. 7 that the drugstore chain CVS has agreed to pick up the costs only for that period. Emergency assistance, which provides funds to meet such expenses as rent, utility bills and burial expenses, has been suspended indefinitely. It is unclear whether other agencies will pick up the jeopardized programs.

At least one community leader is not optimistic that they will. "I'm upset. We're all upset," said Fitzgerald Himmelsbach, who was among RITA's founders in 1994 and its first board president. The agency was reborn ù another had used the same name ù in Union Street Station, a bar Himmelsbach owns in downtown Providence. RITA's worked out of the bar's back office initially. "The AIDS community has gone in so many directions," he told Bay Windows. "I don't think any other group can fill the void. There is no red tape at RITA's. I've heard stories that when people have gone to bigger agencies, like AIDS Project Rhode Island, for assistance, they are turned away."

The larger agencies, said Himmelsbach, who's also Mayor Vincent Cianci's gay community liaison, are bound up in red tape caused by government funding. "You have to be a client of theirs so the numbers work for them. As someone who has raised a lot of money for AIDS, I'm frustrated by the bureaucracy, especially when people are just looking for a little money to tide them over to the next month."

The federal government has not reacted effectively to the changes in the epidemic, he contends: "We're not on a death watch anymore. We're on a recovery watch, something the government doesn't recognize." Stephens has a different opinion. "The bottom line is that I think there are long-range solutions," he said. "Anyone who gets histrionic and says a big company killed the little company misses the point that RITA's was going to go under until we stepped in. There was not enough corporate or individual funding to keep it open."

According to a fact sheet Stephens provided, RITA's ran a deficit of $25,000 from January to April 1999. Rent and creditors were not being paid and personal loans were overdue. In the five months since NRICMHC took the program over, RITA's took in under $6,800 and spent close to $62,000, mainly because of the high costs of providing non-formulary medications. "We are staying open at 280 Broadway and fully intend to restore any services that have been cut just as quickly as possible," Stephens said in a statement. The food pantry, which serves 1,600 HIV-affected clients and family members per year, reopened Sept. 8. Other programs will restart Sept. 20.

"I don't think anyone can provide the services RITA's does," Michael Gerhardt, AIDS Project Rhode Island executive director, told Bay Windows. "It renders an important service and we share a lot of clients with them." Asked if his agency could pick up the emergency assistance program, Gerhardt replied, "We already do some of that and will continue to do so within the limits of our budget." He explained that the AIDS Project receives federal Ryan White Title II funds through the state. "We're currently going through the grant process for the next cycle of funds. From conversations I've heard, we would be allocated more funds for emergency assistance. We could also allocate money from general fundraising. As we go through the budgeting process for next year, we would try to assess our ability to fill the void."

Gerhardt said the agency usually does not turn away clients. "But, we only have so much money, so in a given week, there's a limit to what we can give out. If we run out, sometimes we have to turn someone away."

"According to Ryan White regulations, though, clients can access emergency assistance only once in a 12-month period," Dan Harvey of the project's staff reported. "It's seen as temporary assistance, for example if someone has been evicted."

The NRICMC's lockout of organizations that used offices and meeting rooms at RITA's Place angered the gay community. At least one group that had scheduled a meeting Sept. 1 could not get in. Kate Monteiro, outgoing president of the Rhode Island Alliance for Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights, told Bay Windows she didn't know about the lockout until she received a phone call from another community member Sept. 2.

The Alliance maintained its offices at the facility and, along with several other groups, used it for meetings. Those include Senior Action in a Gay Environment (SAGE/RI); Enforcers RI, a group of leather, S&M and fetishist people that conducts fundraising for AIDS and other causes; the Imperial Court of RI; The RI Gay Pageant Association; the RI Women's Association, and various support groups.

"We're surprised and upset that no one from [NRICMHC] found it important enough to even give us a phone call, even after they had changed the locks," Monteiro said. "I can't speculate on their motives. I can only register our deep frustration."

Stephens told Bay Windows the locks were changed "because everyone has keys. We had to change them because it was a public space and we were afraid the organizations' belongings would be taken." Steven Horovitz, director of special services at the NRICMHC's Providence center, said he tried to notify organizations that meet at One Allens Avenue immediately. "We didn't have a complete list, so I looked in Options [a monthly gay newsmagazine] for the names of groups scheduled to meet Sept. 1," he explained. Horovitz added that the NRICMHC is offering organizations the option of meeting and storing equipment at the Broadway location.

Because of the perception that the situation was mishandled, organizations are displeased with the NRICMHC. The rift could jeopardize a recently initiated program to assist victims of anti-gay violence, started by the Alliance in collaboration with the agency. "I told Stephens that our relationship is in serious question," Monteiro said.

Community groups held an emergency meeting on finding new space Sept. 4 and have scheduled a planning meeting open to the public at 11 a.m. Sept. 18 at the Rhode Island Pride Committee's offices on Seymour Street in Providence. Those interested in attending can phone (401) 467-2130 for directions.
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