Gay Men's Health Crisis, Inc.

Introduction

The Gay Men's Health Crisis (GMHC), America's oldest AIDS organization, organized in 1982, serves to educate the public about HIV/AIDS, provide care services for People with AIDS (PWAs), and advocate at all levels of government for fair AIDS policies. It is a volunteer-supported, community-based organization that provides programs to clients and members of the general public regardless of HIV status, gender, or sexual orientation.

GMHC was founded by six gay men, Nathan Fain, Larry Kramer, Lawrence Mass, Paul Popham, Paul Rapoport, and Edmund White, at Kramer's Manhattan apartment on January 4, 1982. They had all been part of an earlier gathering at Kramer's on August 11, 1981, where Dr. Alvin Friedman-Kien discussed the "gay cancer" that was affecting their friends and lovers. Over $6,600 was raised at that meeting for research into Kaposi's sarcoma at New York University's Medical Center. When the six met in January 1982, they discussed raising more funds for research and organized GMHC's first major event at the Paradise Garage on April 8. The event was called Showers and $50,000 was raised.

While Showers was a success, the group realized that they could do more than simply raise money to help those affected. They decided to try to answer the many questions people had about the disease. The first service provided by the organization was the Hotline, which began in May as an answering machine in the apartment of volunteer, Rodger McFarlane, who later became the organization's second executive director. On the first night, 100 calls were received. While many of the questions could be answered over the phone, some of them required the help of medical, legal, and other professionals to answer. As there was no social service agency to which GMHC could direct these callers, they created the Patient Services Division to provide further help.

Service

In September, Dr. Ken Wein joined as the first Clinical Director and organized the Crisis Intervention Counselors. The Counselors assisted men who had recently fallen ill and who called the Hotline, were otherwise referred to GMHC, needed assistance maneuvering through the health care system, required help at home, or sought other support that could not be provided over the phone. At this time, McFarlane and others had been spending their spare time caring for friends and lovers who were neither able to take care of themselves at home nor represent their own best interests within the health care system. The situation in hospitals was especially critical as these men had to take on the duties of hospital workers, who refused to touch patients or enter their rooms to deliver food.

GMHC created the Buddy Program that September to consolidate the work of these men and to develop a program to train volunteers in assisting PWAs. The program began with 20 men who were on call 24 hours a day to provide assistance, but quickly grew as more men were affected by the disease. The program was staffed entirely of volunteers and initially consisted of people helping friends and lovers affected by AIDS with basic tasks such as grocery shopping, laundry, pet care, as well as spending time with the PWAs. As alarm spread about the disease and hospital staff refused to care for PWAs, Buddies also began to provide nursing care for PWAs and act as intermediaries with social and medical services. A new volunteer position was created to handle the latter and was called Crisis Intervention Worker (CIW). A handful of registered nurses volunteered at GMHC to train people in basic care (bathing, changing, feeding, etc.) of patients.

In 1985, the volunteer position of Crisis Management Partner (CMP) was created and combined the duties of a Buddy and a CIW. CMPs were assigned to PWAs with a number of emotional and physical needs.

As the AIDS epidemic grew and more people became infected, Client Services expanded to provide additional services for PWAs who were able to leave their homes through Recreation Services and Group Support Services programs. Recreation Services consisted of workshops in art, photography, writing, and bridge, trips to museums and other cultural institutions, movies, lunches, and parties. Group Support Services provided group counseling for PWAs and their care partners. These services provided a safe and informal setting to cope with the emotional and social problems associated with AIDS and fostered support networks. By 1985, there were ten groups specifically for PWAs, eleven for their care partners, as well as weekly walk-in groups for PWAs, care partners, family; groups for children with AIDS and their families; and groups for couples dealing with the disease.

Financial Advocacy Services, Legal Services, and the Office of the Ombudsman quickly followed. These services provided free advice to PWAs, kept them abreast of changes in federal services available to them, and provided advocacy for clients with problems with the healthcare system.

As PWAs began living longer and new treatments became available, Client Services began providing Nutrition Counseling, expanded its Recreation Services to include hot meals five days a week as well as other events, and created new Support Groups to meet the needs of communities within the larger AIDS community including women; Latinos and other people of color; and people with chemical dependencies.

By 1987, GMHC had created a position for a Deputy Executive Director for Program Operations which, following a restructuring of the organization in 1989, assumed responsibility for the administration of all of the Client Services programs: Client Advocacy, Education Department, Nutrition and Recreation Services, Legal Services, the Ombudsman Department, and the Volunteer Office.

In 1990, the enactment of the Ryan White CARE Act allowed GMHC to expand existing programs and create new ones. Within the next few years, GMHC created a number of programs which included a permanent Deaf AIDS Project (DAP), the Lesbian AIDS Project, and the Tuberculosis Education and Treatment Support Program. By 1993, Education once again became its own department, with its head reporting directly to the Executive Director.

Education

With the discovery of HIV in 1983, GMHC began its mission of education in earnest. Safe sex brochures and guidelines were published and distributed to bathhouses and gay bars. GMHC began staffing information tables around New York City with literature about AIDS and volunteers who could answer questions about AIDS and GMHC's services. Publication of the Health Letter began, providing statistics and research updates. GMHC was recognized as a leader in providing accurate and up-to-date information on AIDS and was consulted by the media, doctors, and health organizations.

In 1984 the Centers for Disease Control asked GMHC to assist them in creating public conferences on AIDS and in April 1985 they were part of the organizing committee of the first International AIDS Conference in Atlanta.

GMHC's AIDS Prevention program was developed in March 1985 once condoms were proven to be an effective means of preventing HIV transmission. It created programs to disseminate safe sex methods to the gay community and the growing number of other groups affected by the disease.

By October 1986, GMHC's client base had expanded to include heterosexual men and women, hemophiliacs, intravenous drug-users, and children. This led to innovations in AIDS education by GMHC, including the Medical Information Department which published Treatment Issues and provided information on new therapies; showed that safe sex could be fun through sexually explicit material, such as the Safer Sex Comix; and created outreach programs designed to adapt the original sex education classes to African-Americans, Latinos, and lesbians.

The Education Department began an audiovisual program in the mid-1980s which developed the weekly show Living with AIDS; produced public service announcements and safe sex videos which were shown at safe sex forums, sex clubs, and porn theatres; and created an oral history project in which some founders of GMHC were interviewed as well as a number of staff members in the late 1980s.

In the 1990s the department produced safe sex guidelines for lesbians; created programs for HIV-negative gay and bisexual men; expanded programs aimed at African-American and Latino men; and improved education for teens.

Advocacy

GMHC's advocacy work began in October 1983 with the funding of litigation brought by the Lambda Legal Defense Fund in the first AIDS discrimination case. A New York physician, Dr. Joseph Sonnabend, was threatened with eviction from his office because he was treating PWAs and the building's board felt that this would decrease property values. The case was decided in Sonnabend's favor.

Timothy J. Sweeney joined the staff of GMHC in 1986 as the Deputy Executive Director of Policy and created the Public Policy Department. The Department began to fight for increased funding for AIDS research, health care for PWAs, prevention programs, and greater civil rights protections for everyone affected by AIDS. The Department became an advocate at all levels of government for fair AIDS policies and was a leading member of the AIDS Action Council, the New York City HIV Health and Human Services Planning Council, and other groups of AIDS organizations.

Conclusion

At the time of this writing (2009), GMHC still provides many of the services for which it was created; but as AIDS has changed, so have its programs. The organization was created at a time when no one knew what AIDS was or how it was spread and it responded to the needs of its clients as they arose. In the beginning, GMHC provided hands-on, intensive care for PWAs in hospitals and their homes, disseminated timely and available information about AIDS to the affected populations, and provided legal advice. GMHC still provides these services, but now focuses on helping PWAs and HIV positive people to live healthy and productive lives; advocating government for fair policies and scientifically sound public health programs; and solving the legal, financial, and many other issues facing its clients.

GMHC maintains a timeline of important events in its history and the AIDS movement on its website www.gmhc.org.

From the guide to the Gay Men's Health Crisis records, 1975-1978, 1982-1999, 1982-1993, (The New York Public Library. Manuscripts and Archives Division.)