By Cliff Lewis

According to Melinda Zipp, Director of Project Hope (a division of the Lancaster Urban League), there are about 2,500 people living in Lancaster County who are infected with HIV/AIDS. And as much as 25% of these people do not even know it. This virus, life-altering at best and deadly at worst, can creep quietly through a population, often under the cover of secrecy and shame. So what does Lancaster County need to take on such an elusive threat to public health?

Since the early nineties, Project Hope’s answer to this question has been twofold: Prevention and education. To prevent the spread of AIDS from those infected, the organization has provided free tests to County prisoners, residents of the Youth Intervention Center, and walk-ins at the Urban League’s South Duke Street headquarters. In 2008, Project Hope provided over 350 tests. Also to reduce AIDS contraction, Project Hope provides a variety of free contraceptives and offers presentations to educate the public on effective measures of prevention.

One fact that Zipp has learned about the presence of AIDS in Lancaster is it is not merely relegated to the city limits. Although, Zipp would be quick to qualify that the South East section of Lancaster City is “ground zero” for the spread of AIDS in Lancaster County: “I could take a walk and probably see at least five to ten of my clients….So, I would say, in this area of the city, with the drug use and the prostitution, [the rate of infection] is very high.” But, even if the virus is concentrated in this particular area, it can easily ripple outward. A frequent pattern, according to Zipp, is that many young women from outside of the city will commute into the South East section to “prostitute, get their drugs, and go home.”

In Zipp’s experience with providing tests, she has seen about 25% of her clients coming from places like York, Lebanon, and New Holland. Many of these individuals are men who want to avoid exposure in their surrounding community.

Although Project Hope has worked effectively through the decades, the organization will soon be adjusting its efforts in response to rising challenges and shifting public needs. To best serve the population, Project Hope has to avoid overlapping its efforts with similar organizations in the County (SACA’s Nuestra Clinica offers HIV and STD testing to the Latino community, and the AIDS Community Alliance provides case management services for those infected).

Also, funding challenges have risen as more conditions have been added to the granting of State dollars. For example, Project Hope now must demonstrate a 1% HIV/AIDS positivity rate in their testing program to maintain a State grant.

Project Hope’s long-term solution to these challenges is to re-focus its scope of services. In the coming months and years, Zipp said, the organization will be working to expand its “evidence based intervention” services for injection drug users. Zipp describes this “harm reduction” approach as follows: “It’s not about forcing them into rehab; it’s about them picking a goal…and helping them meet one initial goal and then choose another goal and take steps toward that. It’s about helping them get the process down to change their behavior, step by step.” And to further refine its testing program, Project Hope will begin to promote its testing services among targeted high-risk groups—especially the local population of “men who sleep with men,” or “MSM” as Zipp refers to it.

In the early nineties, the AIDS crisis had ballooned to its most deadly presence in Pennsylvania, claiming the lives of 1,851 residents and sparking the formation of groups like Project Hope. Today, with as little as 50 annual AIDS deaths in PA, the crisis has diminished—but not disappeared. And Project Hope is positioned to fight the spread of spread of AIDS and to help those affected, no matter what form the crisis takes.