Pugh: Detroit needs to be ‘squeaky wheel’ to tackle HIV ‘crisis’

FERNDALE — In one of the strongest statements ever made on the subject by a Detroit city official, Incoming Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh said Wednesday night at a hearing on national HIV/AIDS strategy that HIV is “an emergency” and a “crisis” in Detroit.

Statistics from the state of Michigan show many ZIP codes in Detroit have HIV prevalence rates between 3 and 5 percent. One ZIP code has a prevalence rate of 6 percent for HIV, on par with high-rate African counties like Uganda and U.S. urban areas like the District of Columbia and New York City’s Bronx borough. Both D.C. and the Bronx have been elevated to targeted sites for new intervention plans by the Obama administration, including a new, aggressive testing program to identify and treat early HIV infection in those areas.

In order to address Detroit’s HIV crisis, Pugh said the city needs more action by the city’s health department.

“There needs to be more money targets at the crisis areas,” Pugh said.

And Pugh, who is openly gay, said the city’s church community, which was a key constituency for his electoral win, needs to take action. “The church community is not stepping up.”

Pugh made the comments following a two-hour public hearing sponsored by Housing Works’ Campaign to End AIDS, and several Michigan AIDS service organizations. The hearing was hosted as part of the White House’s Office on National AIDS Policy effort to solicit input from the public about development of a new national HIV/AIDS strategy. Christine Campbell, vice president of national advocacy and organizing for Housing Works, was on hand Wednesday night where about 100 residents gathered to discuss what such a national strategy should look like.

Campbell said White House AIDS policy representatives were not present because there are so few of them, noting that the office has only four employees. “They just can’t be everywhere,” she said.

So in order to assure that Michigan’s input would be heard in the White House, Campbell and her group video taped the hearing Wednesday and that video will be provided to ONAP.

She said she has been to similar hearings in D.C. and Mississippi and had noticed a trend of similar calls for action in increasing resources for treatment, medical care access and housing. She also said there were similar remarks made throughout the country about reaching out to the older population, defined as over 50, because Viagra and other impotency drugs have changed the face of sex and the elderly and exposed them to more sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. She also said there continues to be a serious need for a focus on African-American men who have sex with other men, a community severely impacted across the country and in Detroit.

Silence is deadly for Detroit

Organizers said that they had not heard as much from the Detroit community as they had from other cities being asked to contribute to the discussion on developing a comprehensive national AIDS strategy.

“Detroit’s not making any noise,” Campbell said of the fact the city was left off the original list of cities in which hearings were held. “We’re not hearing the noise … Detroit’s going to have to stand up.”

Pugh said perhaps the city needs to be “a squeaky wheel” to get the attention needed to address the epidemic, but he also said he will be a “noisy voice.”

“Maybe the wrong people are part of this epidemic,” Pugh said, referring to the lack of political access of those infected and affected by the disease in Detroit. “I have the ear of the mayor. I have the ear of the mayor. I can have greater access to them, that is where you take the opportunity to say we need more funding.”

Mark Peterson, a director of Michigan Positive Action Coalition, told the gathering that federal funding needed to be stabilized. Currently, funds for HIV/AIDS are authorized by the Ryan White Modernization Act, which is up for congressional approval every three years. “It is buffeted by the winds and whims of what ever party is in power,” Peterson said. “Yeah, that sucks.”