Oakland Community Services Director Terry
Stone is in a bind this weekend,
he's got to find smaller, more efficient
quarters. Hundreds of clients who have
been coming to these Turtle Creek offices
are counting on him for eight years.
Members of the gay community and those
afflicted with AIDS have found comfort
here. But now everything must be moved
primarily because donations
are down. Stone says donations account
for half of his nine hundred thousand
dollar a year budget, and this year
donations were half of what they were in
1988.
I think I'd like to add that
this enables people to donate.
As many as 100 people call the
AIDS hotline here every month.
For some, it's the first learning
experience about the disease.
So what is the number one?
When AIDS first hit, there were lots of
people out there willing to to help
and to jump in.
But just like anything in America these
days, it was the cause celeb
of the month. You know, it's a crisis at
first, but then people get tired of
hearing it. That's forced a staff
reduction and the end of the lease at
3000 Turtle Creek Stone hopes
she'll have a new place by Monday
wherever they relocate.
Oakland Community Services must now be
more conscious of the cost of doing
business. Still, they vow their hotline
and counseling services will continue
because the real bottom line is
the growth of the AIDS epidemic.
Jeff Eliasoph of Texas News 5.