Creating A Shelter For Those With AIDS

"...AIDS is a terrifying disease in several respects. One of the most terrifying elements, however, aside from the fear of disease, infection and death, is the specter of utter loneliness that accompanies AIDS. For one who is in the grips of such threatening disease, to have no home in which to recover, in which to feel safe or in which one can die with dignity magnifies this terror considerably."--Mark S. Senak, AIDS Resource Center (from his testimony before the Committee on Health of the City Council, New York, January 4, 1985).

"If you know someone who is sick with AIDS, do not be afraid to touch them. And being silent is not being kind. Call them up, visit them, hold their hand, touch them, let them know you care. Hope is important to us. Because of this health crisis, gay people are beginning to see that we are more alike than we are different. That we have to help ourselves. Let us be a family for each other."--David Summers, Gay Men's Health Crisis and People With AIDS (from a speech he delivered at the Jerry Falwell protest outside Town Hall in New York, December 10, 1984).

Mark S. Senak, a 29-year-old lawyer, is the vice chairperson of the New York-based AIDS Resource Center, Inc. (ARC), described in its literature as "a non-profit, charitable organization dedicated to serving ambulatory men and women who are in need of resources and/or shelter in an AIDS crisis situation on a case by case basis, without regard to race, creed, or sexual orientation." ARC, in collaboration with the Gay Men's Health Crisis, is attempting to establish New York's first shelter for homeless people with AIDS. (A number of fundraising events have been held in gay-frequented establishments, such as Ty's bar in Greenwich Village, to help ARC and GMHC realize their project, including benefit performances of City Men, a romantic comedy with gay characters, by Philip Blackwell and Laurence Senelick, which drew in over $11,000.) "The first residence will be, among other things," says an ARC flyer, "the direct manifestation of a community's love and care for the afflicted."

Senak, a native of Granite City, Illinois, graduated from Brooklyn Law School. He previously worked as a lawyer in a large investment firm. In August 1984, he started his own law practice on lower Madison Avenue, handling mostly civil cases.



Charles Michael Smith: How did ARC get started?
Mark S. Senak: Actually it was almost two years that a group of people started thinking ahead and thinking about the housing issue and actually sort of planning for the future and seeing that the health crisis would probably produce a lot of homeless people in that it costs so very much to get one's medical care and because of the fear that families are going to have and things like that that they decided to get together and start ARC. One of the principal people to start it is named Buddy Noro. He was the first chairperson of ARC. They began it and began fundraising.
In the last year, we gave away $30,000 to individuals who were having financial difficulties. Some of the people involved initially were ministers. One of them in particular, Mead Bailey, was a principal starter of ARC and a real heartbeat of ARC.

CMS: ARC has three goals. One of them is to establish a shelter for the homeless.
MSS: Right. That's our primary goal. The other is to continue with our direct funding of persons with AIDS. The grants that were being given were grants of $500 and could be used to pay rent or medicine or sometimes even utility costs, if they had not been paid and they were turning off the electricity or some such thing. The third one is the religious advisory committee which is this committee started by Mead Bailey. He began a program of spiritual and pastoral care for persons with AIDS so that if someone's in the hospital with a life-threatening disease, they're often thinking about perhaps dying and what that's going to be like and maybe begin to turn back to some sort of spiritual thinking. Given the nature of relations between gay people and the churches, generally it isn't too good. So Mead started this program whereby if a person wanted to see a minister of their faith or priest, he would be able to put them in touch with somebody who wouldn't be telling them they're damned to hell and that this is God's angry judgment on them. There would be somebody who would be sympathetic and understanding and, in fact, very, very good for the person to talk to as opposed to somebody that they would be afraid of or [who would] begin dredging up any of the reasons for bad relations between gay people and the church.
Mead's program was expanded so that now there's a speaker's bureau that travels to different churches.
Mead died subsequently [from] a heart attack. Of the principal people that started ARC, three are now dead--two with AIDS and Mead with the heart attack.

CMS: You testified recently before the New York City Council's Committee on Health about the need for this shelter. What was the committee members's reactions?
MSS: It was very discouraging. I was discouraged by the whole thing because I sensed a certain hostility from the chairman of the health committee to many of the speakers and in particular to the issue of housing. One question that was asked of me was "What makes your minority so special?" I didn't say it at the time and I'm really upset that I didn't. As soon as I walked out the door, I thought of what I wanted to say: "What makes us special is that we're dying." It astounded me that he would say something like that. I was rather dumbfounded when he asked that.

This is an excerpt from an article that was originally published in the New York Native in 1985.