Michael Preston

From the sidewalk, it was hard to decipher the sounds flowing out of the speakers arrayed around City Hall Park around 9:30 last Monday morning. At one end of the park, five New Yorkers stood arranged in semi-circle, each at their own elevated podium. They read from the large binders placed before them. Each recited the names on the pages as if they were reading them from a phone book. The difference is that each names among the thousands read belonged to a resident of the city that died due to HIV/AIDS.

The readings are part of an annual commemoration of World Aids Day by Housing Works, a New York City-based community service organization that works to raise awareness about the plight of homeless people who are afflicted with AIDS. Dennis Weakly, a volunteer for the organization, explained what the group hoped to achieve at this year’s event:

The mood at the park was appropriately somber. Many people stopped to listen to the readers and perhaps recall a loved one lost to the disease:

According to data from the Centers for Disease Control, the rate of infection for New York City residents is three times the national average.  10% of the 1 million Americans infected with HIV/AIDS live in New York City. But the city recently cut funding for AIDS-related programs, putting more pressure on non-profits like Housing Works.

“It is unconscionable that even before the current national fiscal crisis hit, our elected officials slashed funds for HIV prevention and testing. We hope that the echoes of the names of those who have died from AIDS ringing through City Hall Park on World AIDS Day will remind our leaders of their responsibility to fight AIDS”, said Housing Works President and CEO Charles King in a press release.

Though their task is daunting, Weakly and Housing Works are determined to continue their fight to provide aid, assistance and information to all who are forced to come into contact with the deadly disease: