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Yosemite goes to the dogs
Alameda Holiday Home Tour
ARTS
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Girls of the Golden West
Norm Lewis
The
www.ebar.com
Since 1971, the newspaper of record for the San Francisco Bay Area LGBTQ community
Vol. 4 • No. 48 • November 30-December 6, 2017
Rick Gerharter
Westside Community Services CEO Mary Ann Jones, left, and Craig Hutchinson, director of HIV/AIDS programs.
Agency provides lifeline to HIV clients in SF
Ghost Ship fire anniversary nears
by Matthew S. Bajko
The site of the Ghost Ship warehouse as it looked November 25, nearly a year after a fire killed 36 people.
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or Hal Christiansen, who has lived with HIV for three decades, the AIDS case management services he receives from Westside Community Services have been invaluable in helping him to recover from a stroke he suffered in April 2002 and severe depression following the deaths of his parents. He first turned to the nonprofit for help 10 years ago and receives home visits from both a social worker and a nurse at his apartment near San Francisco’s Russian Hill neighborhood. One time, his social worker brought Christiansen to UCSF’s Alliance Health Project and sat in on the intake interview with him. “I couldn’t talk, I was so overwhelmed,” recalled Christiansen, 64, adding that his social worker was able to answer any questions on his behalf “and got me the help I needed. His kindness really stood out for me.” Over the years the Westside employees that have worked with Christiansen, a gay man who had been a litigation secretary, have gone out of their way, he said, to see that he receives the social support and medical care he needs. His last nurse, for instance, stepped in to ensure he could see a dentist after Christiansen was having trouble securing an appointment. “I have a private doctor who specializes in HIV, but I really rely on Westside Community Services,” said Christiansen. “I don’t know where else in the community I would go to get such good service.” So when the agency announced earlier this year that it would have to end its case management as well as health home care programs for people living with HIV or AIDS due to a lack of funding, Christiansen urged the nonprofit’s leaders to do everything they could to continue the programs. “I was terrified because I really depend on Westside for medical services,” said Christiansen. The agency, which just celebrated its 50th anniversary, has served hundreds of HIV positive San Francisco residents since launching its AIDS Case Management Program in 1988. It is the only Medi-Cal Waiver funded program in the city. But Westside has struggled to maintain the critical services for its HIV clients, as it had not received a rate increase over the past decade. Most of the agency’s AIDS case management clients See page 17 >>
Jane Philomen Cleland
by Seth Hemmelgarn
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aturday, December 2 will mark the first anniversary of Oakland’s Ghost Ship warehouse fire, which killed 36 people who had gathered for an electronic music performance. Since the blaze, which took the lives of at least three transgender people, government
officials have worked to improve safety, and two men who essentially ran the building have each been charged with 36 counts of involuntary manslaughter. The fire and the loss of life brought an outpouring of support from local artists, including those in the LGBTQ community. Memorial art projects were unveiled, and many artists called attention to high rents in the
Bay Area that resulted in some people living in unsafe buildings, such as the Ghost Ship. In a November 9 report to Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf and the City Council, City Administrator Sabrina Landreth said the fire “was a tragedy that resonated across Oakland and the nation. It highlighted deep and complex issues that Oakland has been wrestlilng See page 25 >>
Raunchy musical a holiday hit for theater by Matthew S. Bajko
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musical with swearing puppets, two of which have sex on stage while a female actor portraying the late television star Gary Coleman sings it’s OK for them to be loud while making love, wouldn’t seem to be a fit for the holiday season, when many people treat themselves and their loved ones to theater tickets. Yet “Avenue Q,” the 2004 triple Tony Awardwinner for best musical, score, and book, has proved to be a smash hit for San Francisco’s New Conservatory Theatre Center. This December marks the fifth year in a row the nonprofit LGBT theater company has mounted the show, which does feature a human character named Christmas Eve, a Japanese immigrant who is a therapist in need of clients. “We had no expectation that it would be as good a fit as it turned out to be,” Barbara Hodgen, New Conservatory’s executive director, told the Bay Area Reporter during an interview in early November in the theater’s Mason’s Bar. The 36-year-old theater company has historically presented musicals at the end of the year, such as “Xanadu: The Musical” in 2011 and “Dames At Sea” in 2009. They tend to leave the audience feeling cheerful, fitting for the yuletide season. “It is a good time to do a musical because people are feeling festive,” explained Hodgen. But its prior musical productions didn’t
Lois Tema
Nicky (Brendon North) is one of the zany but lovably furry characters living on Avenue Q in the production of the same name.
generate the same demand for tickets as “Avenue Q” has over the last four years. The initial five-week run in 2013 sold out and was extended for two weeks. Based on that success, the theater took a chance on bringing it back a second time the
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next year. It was a smart decision, as the five shows a week over five weeks all sold out. The run was again extended two more weeks. “Those sell-outs happened earlier in the second year,” recalled Hodgen. “We thought three See page 26 >>