San Francisco Chronicle - May 5, 2005
Tyche Hendricks, thendricks@sfchronicle.com.

"It's devastating. It creates a scenario for more death," said Concepcion Saucedo, executive director of the Instituto Familiar de la Raza, a community health and social service agency that is facing a 12 percent reduction in its $4 million budget. "Our AIDS education and prevention team serves 4,000 clients. That would all be gone."

In recent years, Saucedo's group has coordinated its outreach efforts with three others -- Mission Neighborhood Health Center, Aguilas and Proyecto Contra SIDA Por Vida. The groups work with various segments of the Latino community at risk for HIV infection, including new immigrants, youth, intravenous drug users and their partners, transgender people and men who have sex with men but may not consider themselves to be gay. The Instituto also focuses on women who are at risk because their partners use IV drugs or engage in unsafe sex.

Saucedo and other leaders of the Mission District groups said the selection process for 2005-06 was skewed to favor organizations with the funds to pay professional grant writers; they said the new process did not take into account their successful track records or their history of building trust in the Latino community.

The city Department of Public Health panel that distributes money for HIV prevention cut support for the four groups from about $1.2 million to about $240,000.

James Loyce, deputy director of the city's public health department, who runs the city's AIDS office, acknowledged that the review process does not take into account an agency's history of providing services, and he said better grant-writing would help any group. But he doesn't see a systematic problem.

"There are small groups and large groups that got funded. ... And some large agencies did not get a dime."

In the month since the 2005-06 grants were announced, Loyce has met with representatives from the four agencies and promised them a second round of funding specifically for HIV prevention services in the Latino community.

"I am a man of color who lives in the Mission District," said Loyce. "I am committed and the Department of Public Health is committed to continuing our efforts to meet the needs of people of color. ... This (grant cycle) didn't do that in the Latino community, but we are going to do an alternative solicitation to make sure the Latino community gets those services."

But there may still be a shortfall, because agency officials said the second round of grants will dole out only $600,000.

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