Community women march for AIDS funding

Ruby Garner, Bronx mother living with AIDS, speaks out against service cuts.

Women from the Bronx and Brooklyn—predominantly Black and Latina—marched on New York City Hall on Jan. 12 to demand reinstatement of deep cuts in monies for AIDS support work from the federal “Ryan White Emergency AIDS Funds.”

“Thousands of sick and isolated HIV-positive mothers are being literally thrown out of services,” said Chris Norward, executive director of an AIDS-support program based in the South Bronx. While 80 percent of the city’s women living with AIDS reside in the outer boroughs of New York City, Norward stressed, the Bloomberg administration is telling them, “go to SoHo” in Manhattan for services.

She told reporters her group, for example, is losing roughly 10 percent of its operating budget, forcing some 30 programs in the boroughs to be cut or consolidated.

—Leslie Feinberg