10,000 Put Best Foot Forward to Fight AIDS

AIDS Project Los Angeles--troubled with a lack of cash, the resignation of its executive director, internal soul-searching over its size and direction, and what many see as public apathy to the AIDS epidemic--received a boost Sunday by 10,000 people who walked to raise $1.5 million for the agency.

People with acquired immune deficiency syndrome, people who knew others with the fatal disease and people who just wanted to help out marched in the fourth annual walk to benefit the agency’s counseling services, buddy system, shelter, dental clinic, in-home health care services, food bank, hot line and other programs.

Free Time to Spend

“I figure I’ve got free time, I might as well spend it wisely,” said Margarita Nunez, 24, of Los Angeles, who took part on “the spur of the moment.”

John F. Callahan, 43, dressed in a wool kilt, vest and tam-o’-shanter, took his bagpipes to play at rest stops along the 6.2-mile route through Hollywood.

“Scottish and Irish chieftains always had pipers to play to the troops. I want to start that here,” the Torrance man said.

“We’re here because we’re lucky,” said Katherine Carter, 38, who was walking with her husband. “We’re married and not in the high-risk group. I want to be able to help those who aren’t as lucky.”

The walk, project officials say, will help pay off the nearly $1 million in debt that AIDS Project Los Angeles is carrying--including a loan, bills and invoices for which the agency is waiting for reimbursement from the state.

The agency, with its main office on Wilshire Boulevard, is the oldest and largest AIDS of more than $8 million, about 70% of which is from donations, mostly from individuals, and 30% from grants, mostly government.

Deputy director Gregory L. McAllester attributes the cash shortage--the largest the 6-year-old organization has ever faced--to fund-raisers earlier this year that did not bring in as much as expected and to the yearly government funding cycle, in which the group is now awaiting payment for expenditures it has already made.

The problem prompted the project in August to begin slashing its monthly expenses by $80,000, including cutting 5 1/2 support staff positions and reducing most salaries by 5%.

For the most part, services to clients were spared, McAllester said.

The financial quandary of AIDS Project Los Angeles was no surprise to some activists, given what they see as lagging interest in the AIDS dilemma.

“It’s not shocking to me at all that they’re out of money,” said David B. Mixner, a government affairs consultant, who volunteers for AIDS Project Los Angeles and other AIDS support groups. “Society is not responding as it should.”

Time for ‘Rallying of Forces’

“It’s very difficult to maintain any intense interest in problem-solving,” said Rabbi Allen Freehling, who serves on the project’s board and chairs the Los Angeles County Commission on AIDS. “People are getting tired of hearing of AIDS.”

What is needed, Freehling said, is a “rallying of the forces” and more imaginative ways to attract and keep up concern. Many of those who are rallying, though, are ill or have died from the disease, and “other people have to take their place.”

AIDS Project Los Angeles and other AIDS agencies are also struggling under a client load that’s getting heavier and heavier, activists say. The agency had 740 clients as of 1986, 1,800 as of this year, and estimates that the numbers will nearly double by next year.

But the money from fund raising and the government is not doubling every year, said David Wexler, an AIDS Project Los Angeles board member.

Meanwhile, the project has been taking risks, said Paula Van Ness, a former executive director of the organization.

“Do we help the person get his apartment now, hoping the money will be there (later), or do we wait until we get the money? So far, it has been, ‘We’ll do as much as we can on all fronts, and we’ll find a way to pay the bills,’ ” she said.

“There was a lot of denial that the agency couldn’t be all things to all people,” said John C. Wolfe, who resigned as executive director last week.

Wolfe resigned, he said, because the board of directors offered him a three-month interim contract that was unacceptable.

AIDS Project Los Angeles board member Deborah Rutter said the short contract was offered because the board wanted time to assess the organization as a whole before evaluating Wolfe’s performance.

Instead of trying to do it all by itself, the agency will have to work more closely in coalitions--for instance, with groups in racial minority communities, Freehling said.

The project already refers clients to other appropriate AIDS support organizations, spokesman Andrew Weisser said.

And some in the agency, like fund-raising assistant Leif Green, acknowledged that there may be a time in the future when “big chunks of AIDS Project as we know it right now won’t be here.”

Now Has 127 Employees

With the project’s growth, some employees say, has come a yearning for the days when the organization, now with 127 employees, had less than 10 workers.

Wolfe’s resignation, last month’s layoffs, outside rumors that the agency is bankrupt, and what some see as gaps between the on-line staff and upper administration have been other blows to morale, employees say.

The project is stable but going though some growing pains, Freehling and others say.

Candidates are being interviewed for the interim executive directorship. Alternative fund-raising tactics are being explored. The board is figuring out priorities, including when and if more cutbacks might be needed.

“We’ve had our problems,” said Jack Cotter, manager of the project’s food bank. “We have to own up to the mistakes, move on, and not ruminate. I just want to get on with it.”