Miami Herald (MH) - Sunday, March 1, 1998
Stephen Smith; Herald Health Writer

Health Crisis Network, still reeling from a money crisis, decided Friday the best hope for salvation rested with Community Research Initiative of South Florida. The merger won't become final until the two agencies review each other's financial books, a process expected to take about two months.

"HCN is at a crossroads where it really has to reinvent itself," said attorney Samuel S. Blum, who sits on the boards of both agencies. "We're not here for the subsistence of an agency. We're here to help people, and that's the bottom line."

The marriage between Health Crisis Network and Community Research Initiative illustrates the shifting reality of the AIDS epidemic.

At the same time that powerful new medicines are helping people live longer, the stream of support from government and private sources is failing to keep pace, causing financial crises at AIDS agencies across the nation.

Health Crisis Network discovered in the past two months that it was not immune from those pressures. Launched 15 years ago at the start of the epidemic, Health Crisis grew into an agency providing services to 900 people a month.

Such agencies spend much of their time hanging by a thin reed. It snapped at Health Crisis in January. A bureaucratic snafu conspired with lackluster money raising results to create a financial crisis so severe that 15 workers were laid off, the remaining staff was furloughed for 2-1/2 weeks and all but essential services were curtailed.

The news continued to be gloomy this week, after Health Crisis tallied the donations taken in from AIDS Walk Miami, one of the agency's two major money-generating events.

The total: $500,000 -- about $200,000 less than expected.

Talks between the agencies that began in January reached a conclusion this week when the boards of each voted to merge.

"At a time when funders are challenging us to do more with less and avoid redundancy, we clearly have come up with a plan that will do that," said Rick Siclari, the only executive director in Community Research Initiative's nine-year history. "The whole is going to be greater than the sum of the parts."

Siclari will be the executive director of the merged agency. Other details -- including a name and where the headquarters will be -- have not been settled.

Health Crisis has a budget of $3.5 million a year and a staff of about about 85. Community Research has an annual budget of $1.3 million and a staff of 23.

No major layoffs are expected. And that, in part, is a reflection of the varying missions of the agency.

Health Crisis Network's charge is education, prevention and helping people with AIDS and HIV navigate the labyrinth of services. For instance, it provides rides to medical appointments and support groups for people coping with the ravages of the disease.

Community Research Initiative labors to make the newest medicines available to patients by enrolling them in drug trials. Since its inception, the agency has been involved in more than 45 trials, including tests of two medicines from the most powerful class of AIDS drugs, protease inhibitors.

Leaders of both agencies hope that the merger will give more patients -- especially low-incomepatients -- access to more drugs.

People living with the disease, ensnared in the tumult of Health Crisis' financial crisis, weren't so hopeful Friday night.

"I still have a lot of questions," said Yolanda Hernandez, who gets services through Health Crisis Network. "It's all very scary."
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