As the leader of an agency that is firmly rooted in the housing justice movement and as a person with a 23-year history in the AIDS movement, I have been thinking lately about some of the differences of those two camps with an eye toward how we might learn from each other.
The housing justice movement has been able to create incredible change. It has redefined the boundaries of the uses of private property in the face of an incredibly well financed opposition. It has helped redefine our political system with the implementation of district elections, where it is in the majority. We are winning a respectable percentage of our legislative efforts in an incremental approach to expanding housing security for hundreds of thousands of people. It is not an especially well financed movement.
The AIDS movement has achieved similarly remarkable changes in the past. However, I no longer get that same sense of a movement in the AIDS world. There seems to be a thinking that is more indicative of empire building than movement building. Some organizations seem to be stuck in a zero sum game mindset manifested as competition for money with the idea that another agency's success means a loss for them. I have not seen systems change advocacy from agency leaders in a long time. It seems each agency is on its own advocating for its own funding.
This same poverty consciousness also seems to infuse the world of ideas. There are those who deem themselves to be the gatekeepers of ideas. This is the greatest threat. Money is a detail but good ideas are the life of a movement. This empire building mentality leads to a lack of transparency and information sharing. Others are seen as threats instead of allies in the movement. Everyone suffers.
People who are stuck with these notions are dead wrong. There is not a lack of money. There is a lack of imagination. We need more noble leadership with bold ideas who can firmly challenge those with whom they disagree or are afraid of, and then have the strength of character to lend support when they are wrong.
We must reclaim a movement that is for all people with HIV/AIDS. The current trend of focusing our attention on which communities to deny services to – as opposed to focusing on expanding resources while creatively using the funds we already have, is dangerous. Creating winners and losers is not the best course, as it undermines our effectiveness in building a movement by cutting out key stakeholders in the community.
Empires concentrate their wealth at the top in a class of people who feel entitled to their privilege. Movements distribute their resources to the people so that basic needs are met. Empires can be controlled by co-opting the wealthy leadership who become afraid of losing their privilege and power. Movements are unstoppable. Empires are threatened by change. Movements create change.
For the AIDS movement to succeed, it must master the three M's: moral authority, mobilizing voters, and making our own money. I call this the Iron Triangle of Power.
We must be mindful of ways that we abdicate our moral authority. Taking excessive salaries is in conflict with our stated goals and creates a cognitive dissonance in the community and within our own hearts and minds that compromises our moral authority.
Overcompensated leaders practice avoidance of their conflicted feelings in subtle ways. Not inviting people with AIDS to the table and undermining the authority of people with AIDS when they get to the table is one manifestation of this avoidance. A systematic failure to create meaningful employment opportunities appropriate for disabled people with HIV/AIDS is another disgraceful manifestation of this avoidance. Is it possible people are protecting their careers by excluding people with HIV/AIDS from employment because there is a fear that we can do a better job and do it for less money? I make $500 per month as the director of the AIDS Housing Alliance/SF. I only take what I need to survive. The rest must remain for those who do not have a home.
There comes a point when we have compromised our moral authority so much that we lose the support of the community, which impacts our ability to mobilize voters and further erodes our power. It seems the root of this compromise is money. We must look creatively at how we can better spend the money we already have, like reprioritizing 10 percent of the $100 million in salaries spent at AIDS service organizations annually on creating supportive employment for disabled people with HIV/AIDS and on creating an executive leadership training program for disabled people with HIV/AIDS.
We must have the moral authority and passion to engage the community to help achieve the political support to achieve these goals. If we are to reignite passion in the fight against AIDS, we must inspire people with our strength, with our commitment to sacrifice for the greater good and with our ability to speak truth to power. By recapturing our moral authority, we will be able to once again mobilize masses of people so that the money will come.
Brian Basinger is a member of the city's Comprehensive HIV/AIDS Housing Work Group.