9
Bailey House instead created a full-time subsidized residence. According to Melinda Cuthbert’s
informants, “The City wanted Bailey House to be a shelter, but shelter residents are not
considered to have addresses, so they are not eligible for welfare or SSI” (1990:147). Baily
House gave residents a permanent address and helped them to navigate the city’s complex social
service entitlements procedures.
The empowerment movement for people with HIV/AIDS grew directly out of the
intersection of these social support efforts and the cultural and identity work ongoing among gay
activists. The landmark event of this movement was the 2
nd
National AIDS Forum, in 1983, in
Denver, Colorado, sponsored by the National Gay and Lesbian Health Education Foundation.
Consciously modeled on the Seneca Falls Convention of 1848, from which had come the
Declaration of Sentiments linking women’s rights to the ideal of citizenship, the 1983 Denver
meeting produced a declaration of the rights of PWAs including “the right to die —and LIVE—
in dignity” (emphasis in original). The Denver Principles, as the document became known,
introduced the now common phrase “People with AIDS,” in an effort to replace the more
marginalizing “AIDS victim.” The term, and its later incarnation, “People Living with HIV,”
stressed “people” rather than transmission rates, living rather than dying. And while the Denver
Conference was particularly a lesbian and gay event, the declaration explicitly sought to speak
for all those seeking new ways to live in the face of HIV, officially marking the separation of
AIDS activism from gay activism. The Denver Principles became the founding statement of the
empowerment movement for people living with HIV/AIDS.
The empowerment movement took several directions. First, through new member/client
NPOs such as the People with AIDS Coalition (PWAC, later PWAC/NY), people with
Convention