County HIV Intervention Project Ends

For nearly three years, outreach workers have been cruising the streets of Ventura County in a white van, offering HIV testing and counseling to drug and alcohol abusers. On Tuesday, workers took the van on its final drive--back to the parking lot where the county’s fleet of vehicles is kept.

After months of riding the funding roller coaster, looking for grants and holding onto hope, the HIV Outreach Intervention Project has shut down.

“We explored a lot of possibilities,� said Stephen Kaplan, director of the county’s Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, which oversees the intervention project. “Nothing materialized. We were looking everywhere.�

The program was initially funded by the Center for Substance Abuse in Washington, but federal budget cuts have left the center unable to pay for continued service in Ventura County. This leaves an undeniable void, county health officials say.

“They covered the county, they were all over,� said Robin Kirsch, an outreach worker with the county’s principal HIV education and testing program. “Now we have lost that. They had built up such a trust in the community.�

Officials say the van was able to reach a segment of the population who would otherwise have shied away from treatment. By going out into the streets, outreach workers had more luck persuading addicts--whose behavior puts them at higher risk for acquired immune deficiency syndrome than others--to take HIV tests and to avoid sharing needles. Along with testing, health workers would distribute condoms and bleach kits to cleanse needles.

Since the program began in March 1993, 1,375 people have been tested for the virus in area parking lots and on roadsides. Kaplan could not provide the exact number who learned through the mobile program that they had the HIV virus. “It’s very small,� he said. “It’s very small.�

Knowing that today loomed as the final day of funding for the program, outreach workers stopped giving tests about two weeks ago because it takes that long to process the results. The van visited the Samaritan Center in Simi Valley for the final time last week.

“I was really sad to see them go,� said Dianne Hooley, director of the center, which provides services for homeless people in Simi Valley. “I am just sick about it, because my people used this source.�

Kaplan said the program has been teetering on the edge of extinction since August, but said he had faith--up until the last minute--that some money could be found to pay for the van’s daily trips into the community. The program has received nearly $350,000 in federal funds each year as part of a three-year grant.

“Initially, I was optimistic,� he said. “But budgets are so tight everywhere. No one is in the situation of having loose change around.�

The Ventura County program may have actually suffered from its own efficiency. Kaplan said he had hoped to keep the program going until at least June 30 by using unspent money from the first two years of operation, but the federal Center for Substance Abuse retrieved that money and redistributed it to similar programs elsewhere.

There are 559 AIDS cases in the county and about 900 to 1,200 more people who are HIV positive. County health officials said about 11% of those infected are intravenous drug users. While the number of cases overall has increased in the past two years, the percentage of those who have contracted the disease from sharing needles has not grown. That fact, which could be attributed in part to work done by the outreach van, may have also hurt the local program’s chances of receiving continued funds.

“My understanding of why they have not been refunded is because our numbers are very low,� said Diane Seyl, the county’s AIDS coordinator.

Kaplan acknowledged that the number of Ventura County drug users who have contracted AIDS is relatively small, especially when contrasted with urban areas, but he did not want to second-guess the funding process. “You go into these grants and you know there could be an end to them,� he said. “It’s the risk you take.�

Kaplan said he will continue to look for ways to restart the program in the future. In the meantime, public health officials are gearing up to fill the gaps left by the van’s absence.

Kirsch said the HIV Outreach Education and Testing effort will continue to offer free anonymous tests to anyone with alcohol and drug problems. The tests will be conducted Tuesdays between 1 and 3 p.m. at the program’s Ventura office at 955 E. Thompson Blvd.

“We are going to try and pick up some of the slack, of course,� Kirsch said. “But to take on their whole caseload, we’re good, but we’re not that good.�