Financial Woes Face Black HIV Group

Gay Men of African Descent on hiatus as its aims to shift funding model

A Brooklyn organization that focuses on HIV prevention and sexual health among African-American gay and bisexual men will go on hiatus for the summer while it reorganizes from its current grant-based funding scheme to a fee-for-service provider model under which it will deliver mental health, substance abuse, and other services to its clients.

“We have discussed needing to shift,” said Vaughn Taylor-Akutagawa, the executive director at Gay Men of African Descent (GMAD). “Just being a grant recipient is not sustainable.” Founded in 1986, GMAD has not adapted to newer service models required by government funders that first emphasized expanded HIV testing. Given its smaller size, GMAD could not produce the volume of testing that government agencies wanted. More recently, funders required organizations to swiftly move people who tested positive for HIV into treatment so that the virus is suppressed to the point that they cannot infect others. Funders also seek to move people who are HIV-negative but at risk for the virus on to pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), which is a pill-a-day regimen that prevents HIV infection. These HIV prevention strategies require that funded agencies see large numbers of clients.

Over time, government grants became GMAD’s primary revenue source, but it could not produce the volume of results that government funders wanted and so that funding has steadily disappeared.

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During the Canada Post strike announced September 25, 2025, the following measures will be undertaken to minimize service disruption to BC-CfE clients and providers.

  • The BC-CfE Laboratory has transitioned to private courier for delivery of outgoing reports and documents. Results required urgently can be faxed upon request. (Lab Contact Information: Phone 604-806-8775; FAX 604-806-9463)
  • The BC-CfE Drug Treatment Program (DTP) will fax outgoing forms and documents to the provider’s office. (DTP Contact Information: Phone 604-806-8515; FAX 604-806-9044)
  • St. Paul’s Hospital Ambulatory Pharmacy has transitioned to private courier for delivery of medications. We recommend requesting medication at least 2 weeks in advance in case of delivery delays, particularly to rural/remote parts of BC. (Contact Information: Phone 1-800-547-3622; FAX 604-806-8675)

During the Canada Post strike, we recommend that documents be faxed or couriered to our sites, versus utilization of regular mail service

The BC-CfE Laboratory is streamlining reporting processes for certain tests in order to simplify distribution and record-keeping, and to ensure completeness of results. Beginning September 2, 2025, results for the ‘Resistance Analysis of HIV-1 Protease and Reverse Transcriptase’ (Protease-RT) and ‘HIV-1 Integrase Resistance Genotype’ tests will be combined into a single ‘HIV-1 Resistance Genotype Report’.
For more details and example reports, please click on the button below