“January 1999, And The Band, Is STILL Playing On...”

A Gay, HIV+ Americans’ Perspective on the State of OUR Union

  1999 - Things To Accomplish:

Jan. 3, 1999:(List starting date.)

* HUD Issues/Covington HUD Status: Rampant discrimination in the Section 8 program  against qualified participants (the majority of which are Senior Citizens and the Disabled) by good  landlords with decent, well-maintained, safe and sanitary properties due to the stereotypes associated with Section 8/HUD Housing program participants.  This allows slumlords with substandard properties to thrive within the program due to a severe shortage of housing stock that is already crippling it.  I took this apartment in Covington because it was one of those clean, safe, sanitary and well-maintained properties and although the landlord would not accept my section 8 certificate at the time, I knew that once I had moved in, established myself as an exceptional tenant (not at all the section 8 stereotype), he would agree to accepting Section 8 for me and I would be able to survive.  It was not until I moved in and gave up my section 8 certificate that I learned that the City of Covington had closed its applications for Section 8 assistance for up to a year!!  My landlord has gotten to know me, has agreed to take Section 8 and has already begun the building modifications that will be required in order for this building to pass the Section 8 inspection, but the applications still remain closed and are not expected to open up  at any time soon.

*Be more involved in the Neighborhood Watch &  Wallace Woods Neighborhood Assn.:

*Create ‘No. Ky. SlumLord Alert’ Web Page:

*Create personal “Coming Out Of Hiding” Web Page to write my book on:

*Update Media Contacts list:

*Update Elected/Government  Officials Contacts list:

  *Organize and cross-reference resource materials/information for my book:

*Write Mr. Clinton in support of his administration & The State of The Union: After the Reagan/Bush Republican Era when the President couldn’t even say the word AIDS, how refreshing, amazing and welcome to hear the words ‘Sexual Orientation’ pass the lips of a sitting President in regard to the passage of legislation he supports and those words are included in!!  The new and improved benefits of Social Security and Medicare, especially for those of us in early retirement due to disability, would be fine additions to those programs. However, it would be better to fix the problems in the existing programs and make sure they are working properly and equally for ALL Americans!  (i.e.: HUD/Section 8, Food Stamps and other federal programs that are currently unfairly skewed against single Americans with no dependents.)

*1999 - 150th Birthday of Dayton, Kentucky: Propose project: “City of Dayton, Kentucky -150th Anniversary , 1999- Millennium Memorial Monument”.

*June 1999 - Mom & Dad’s 45th Anniversary:

*Put together an outline & manuscript to date of my book to submit for publication:

*Repair/Rebuild cracks in the foundation (my life) of my Bridge to the 21st Century:

        *AVNK: Valentine’s Fund-Raising Proposal - Similar to Christmas Tree of Life campaign for Caracole House, but using Heart shaped tags/cards.  This would be an excellent source of income with which they could fund a P.A.W.S. program for No. Ky. PWA’s, and could be carried out with very little planning, preparation or seed-money for materials.

        *Family: I am what I am....  This is basically a lost cause here, neither of us is going to change enough to satisfy the other.  I’m going to write the story of my life and they will be very upset about it, but I can’t change anything about the past and what we’ve already been through.  I do know that I now understand why a lot of things happened the way they did and they are directly tied to  the who, what, where, when, how and why of how I was raised. I know that given those things, my parents do love me and they tried to do the best they can raising all six of us.  And even though they/I made mistakes in how we may have handled things, they were honest mistakes with no malice intended.  However, they were mistakes that hurt me deeply, shaped my life and created horrid psychological baggage that I’ve been carrying around.  That is, until recently...

Page last Revised/Up-dated: 08/25/04 .