San Francisco Chronicle - Friday, June 27, 2003
Rona Marech, Chronicle Staff Writer

"When you see them people, you stay as far away from them as you can," her mother said.

Benton bridled. "She didn't even know that standing right in front of her was someone who was HIV-positive," she said. "I wanted to say something so bad. "

When she heard the exchange, Benton was on her way to the AIDS Project East Bay, one of the most prominent East Bay AIDS services organizations.

APEB, which primarily serves low-income people of color, is laboring to combat the sort of ignorance and denial that fuels such comments.

In Oakland, however, it's still very much an uphill battle. Since 1993, African Americans and whites have seen annual declines in the number of AIDS cases diagnosed, yet African Americans represent an increasing proportion of the population with AIDS in Alameda County. In the early years of the epidemic, blacks in Alameda County constituted just one-fifth of annual AIDS cases, but since 1995 they have made up half or more of the annual AIDS cases, according to the county's 2001 epidemiology report -- the most recent statistics available.

These figures led the county to declare a public health state of emergency in 1998. Despite the flurry of attention the emergency declaration inspired, the situation hasn't changed dramatically since then, said Hazel Wesson, the executive director of APEB.

"It still goes back to that stigma and people's belief systems," Wesson said.

"If you historically look at how change was made in the African American community, it came from the church. We're working on it. We're not there, but we're getting there. . . . Our work is cut out for us."

APEB, which became Alameda County's first AIDS organization when it was established in 1983 as a program of the Pacific Center for Human Growth, is set apart by both its clientele and the diversity of its services.

Eighty percent of the organization's clientele fall below the poverty line; approximately 75 percent are African American and 10 percent are Latino. APEB also considers transgender people part of its target population -- though transgender people still comprise only a small percentage of clients.

For those who do walk through the doors of its downtown Oakland building, all services are free. Clients can get help with the most basic needs -- food, transportation, housing, public benefits. They can receive medical care at the Wellness Center, which is staffed by a nurse and physician's assistant and run in a collaboration with Highland Hospital.

In addition, HIV-positive visitors can see counselors and case managers, attend an array of support groups, including groups for substance abusers, for Latinos, for African American men and for women.

APEB also does education and outreach -- local churches are among the organization's partners in those efforts. The Butterfly Project is the only AIDS program in the county that specifically targets transgendered adults, offering workshops, training and support services.

"They're very diverse -- one-stop shopping. Testing, prevention services, clinical services," said Ronald Person, director of Alameda County Health Department's Office of AIDS Administration. "They've performed very needed services here and both the city of Oakland and the county thinks quite highly of them. . . . They are a major player. They're very responsive to the community."

Like all AIDS organizations, Wesson said, APEB has had to adjust to the fact that people with AIDS are no longer dying at the same rate.

"We get you to a doctor, then you get healthy, then what?" she said. In the past, the staff was constantly triaging, but they've had to evolve to focus on long-term mental health and planning.

When Jay Hernandez of Berkeley came to APEB three years ago he weighed 117 pounds and was "really, really sick."

"All my friends had died," he said. "I was waiting for the disease to take me."

The staff at APEB gave him food and transportation vouchers, turned him on to a support group in San Francisco for gay Latino men and referred him to a substance abuse treatment center where he got clean after 17 years of doing speed. Eventually, they offered him a temporary job helping clients with housing.

"When I found out that I wasn't going to die, I had to get back to living," Hernandez said. "Basically this organization helped me to go on."

E-mail Rona Marech at rmarech@sfchronicle.com.

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