Crowley Says
Crowley (right with NAPWA’s Frank Oldham) at AIDSWatch
In conference calls with AIDS advocates during the last two weeks, White House Domestic AIDS Czar Jeffrey Crowley continued to defend the Obama administration’s progress on HIV/AIDS policy and said that a basic structure for a National AIDS Strategy should be in place by early 2010. Many advocates were skeptical as to both the timeline and how much community input will be a part of the process.
“I feel like I’m balancing competing pressures,” Crowley said in a call with more than 200 members of the Federal AIDS Policy Partnership (FAPP) on Monday, noting that he needed to gather input from different sectors of society but also faces pressure to get things done quickly. He also spoke with more than 50 members of the Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA) last Thursday.
Crowley revealed some new information in the calls: Government agencies will ultimately advise and create the National AIDS Strategy, though his office will organize at least 10 formal town hall meetings throughout the fall throughout the country to gather community input. The first meeting will be on August 25 at the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta.
Crowley said he doesn’t yet know if people not attending the conference will be allowed to participate in the town hall. He also doesn’t know where the rest of the town halls will be but said at least one will be geared towards Native Americans. Others will take place in areas hard hit by the epidemic and where the epidemic is growing. Crowley plans to reach out to people who are HIV-positive, as well as people who are not directly involved with fighting AIDS. The White House will also create an online forum for gathering comments.
Once the town halls are complete in the fall, government agencies will get to work drafting the strategy. This timeline suggests that a National AIDS Strategy wouldn’t go into effect until early 2010, at the very earliest.
Slightly skeptical
Participants in both calls were lukewarm about Crowley’s message. While praising his openness, some were concerned with his extended timeline and lack of progress.
“I’m not 100 percent satisfied with the strategy being put out next year. I want to see a strategy put in place before next year so it can be implemented,” said Marsha Jones, secretary of C2EA.
FAPP Co-Chair Will Smith said he was worried that community input might not be adequate.
“The process may not sufficiently bring the HIV community in,” Smith said. “We don’t know if these ten townhall style meetings will provide input into what a National AIDS Strategy looks like.”
Crowley said that federal law prohibits him from convening advisory panels, which is why he can’t have formal community input, as he would like. And although he was “reluctant” to talk about it, he said that the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) will be reevaluated when the charter expires next month.
“It’s an opportunity to take a fresh step forward,” Crowley said.
Advocates have been calling for a National AIDS Strategy for years and momentum reached a peak in the months leading up to the election in November. Obama recently said he supports a National AIDS Strategy in a radio interview with Bev Smith on National HIV Testing Day last month.
‘Same old story
Crowley is also “far along in the process” of hiring five staffers and said that members of the staff will be HIV-positive.
“I’ve made a commitment for people with HIV on my staff and to have racial and gender diversity,” Crowley said in the call with C2EA. But he noted it would be “discriminatory on many levels” to designate a position just for a person of a specific race, gender or HIV-status. “But we can’t just rely on staff members. That’s why I’m committed to getting a process in place where we can get as much input as possible.”
Crowley has made a point of being accessible, even giving out his e-mail address to participants. Many advocates on the call had spoken to him before and already heard much of what he had to say.
“That’s the job of government, to repeat your message over and over until people hear it. I’m just looking forward to when that message is updated,” said SisterLove executive director Dazon Dixon Diallo.
One message that has yet to be updated is lifting the ban on syringe exchange funding. While Obama has stated his support for lifting the ban, he has yet to exert any public pressure on Congress to do so. Crowley suggested that advocates need to up their lobbying, enlisting the faith and law enforcement communities in their efforts.
“Jeff ignores the fact that the White House has lobbied Congress on countless issues,” said Housing Works President and CEO Charles King, whose recent speech criticized the Obama administration. “Obama needs to take a public stand to show he is committed to lifting the ban on syringe exchange.”
Posted on July 8, 2009 at 11:38 pm
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