Care For the Homeless

Over 30,000 walkers participated in this past Sunday’s AIDS Walk NYC, including 11 Care for the Homeless staff and client leaders. The 30th anniversary of the event honored Governor Cuomo for his ‘Bend the Curve’ Plan, the governor’s plan to end the AIDS epidemic in New York in by reducing new cases to 750 by 2020. The governor’s three point plan includes identifying people with HIV who remain undiagnosed and linking them to care, retaining people living with HIV with health care services and anti-HIV therapy and providing access to PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) to high-risk individuals to help them remain HIV negative. The annual walk raised record funds for the Gay Men’s Health Crisis as well as over 40 other AIDS services organization in the tri-state area whose services are key to helping bend the curve of new HIV cases in New York.    Care for the Homeless has been on the frontline of the crisis for many years, providing critically needed HIV/AIDS services such as diagno

 Left from bottom, Client Leader Gayle Dorsky, Staff members Dominiq Williams and Kim Dalve and Client Leader David Broxton at the Capitol  During last week’s National Health Care for the Homeless Conference in Washington D.C. Care for the Homeless’ clients and staff took to the Hill to advocate for the programs and policies that we know can help end homelessness. Throughout the three day conference a Care for the Homeless team made up of Client Leaders David Broxton and Gayle Dorsky and staff members Kim Dalve and Dominiq Williams visited with congressional representatives from all over New York State. “Even small cuts to SNAP (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program) are really hurting people who rely on them.” Gayle told NY representatives. “Like many New Yorkers, I’ve had to go to food pantries more, but I have friends who don’t have the time to go to food pantries or get turned away from pantries that have limited resources.” In addition to advocatin

Last night Care for the Homeless celebrated the graduation of its second class of “CFH Certified Advocates”, adding new members to the Care for the Homeless Speakers’ Bureau. The program is open to volunteer client leaders who have been or are homeless and are consumers of Care for the Homeless health care or other services. Those recognized as graduating included Patricia Gale, George Phipps, Monica Sayers, Brenda Turner and Raymond West. Previous graduates who introduced the new graduates or spoke at the graduation included Calvin Alston, David Broxton, Ava Conner, Gayle Dorsky, Garrett McMahan and Anthony Williams. In order to graduate participants must completed 12 hours of training, half in homeless policy issue training and half in public speaking training. At the graduation each new Certified Advocate told their personal story, hooked that story to a public policy issue and advocated for better public policy on that issue. Certified Advocates become mem