AIDS IN BACKYARD, HEADS IN SAND

YONKERS - THE resident former president in Chappaqua, who has made AIDS a
cause of his post-presidency, declared Sunday in an Op-Ed article in The
New York Times that "too many countries are still in denial about the scope
of the problem and what has to be done about it."

Bill Clinton was referring mostly to AIDS denial in underdeveloped nations.
But if he wants to see a subtler strain of AIDS avoidance, prevalent in
this country, he could drive 20 minutes down the Saw Mill River Parkway to
a tough corner of his own Westchester County.

Southwest Yonkers has robust rates of poverty and AIDS more common in parts
of the Bronx, which it borders to the south, than in fancy towns to the north.

But when Joshua Lipsman, the county health commissioner, suggested a needle
exchange program to combat the spread of the virus by drug users, he met a
resounding silence from Yonkers officials. This, in a city with 30 percent
of the county's 3,457 AIDS cases.

And when Jeffrey Kraus, executive director of AIDS-Related Community
Services, Westchester's largest AIDS service provider, wanted to open
offices and a walk-in center in downtown Yonkers last year, he said, he was
given the runaround and gave up. He was never told that since 1997, the
city code has prohibited new social service agencies in the business
district, where redevelopment is under way.

Lorraine Lopez, a special assistant to Mayor John Spencer and a former City
Council member, said she asked the local AIDS advisory group to brief the
Council during her tenure, but most members, representing districts outside
southwest Yonkers, seemed unmoved.

"They gave them the courtesy, but they didn't do anything," she said.
"There was almost a sense that this doesn't happen in my backyard. But it
does."

If some officials look the other way, so do some people at risk. At a youth
rally for World AIDS Day on Monday, Ms. Lopez implored the audience to take
precautions. "In my family, we didn't listen," she said. "And guess what?
We grew up in southwest Yonkers and we buried my daddy."

David Booker grew up there, too. His brother Haven, who was a drug addict,
died in 1987 of AIDS. When Haven was sick, he warned their brother Charles
to stay clean. Charles died the same way in 1999, but not before warning
young relatives. Now, Mr. Booker said: "I have another brother at risk. I'm
worried about him."

Mr. Booker is deputy executive director of the Sharing Community, a social
service agency here, and he is amazed that people still ignore AIDS, even
in a neighborhood where it has been a 20-year war. "People pretend it's not
here, until it happens to someone they know," he said. "Or until it happens
to them."

It would be unfair to say Yonkers shrugs off its AIDS burden. There are
medical and housing programs for infected people, some subsidized by the
city, as well as educational programs.

BUT there is a sense here, as elsewhere, that the crisis has passed since
drugs made a fatal illness merely chronic, even as the disease becomes more
concentrated among women, minority residents and intravenous drug users.
"We're starting all over again," said Charles G. Lief, president of the
Greyston Foundation, which treats AIDS patients here, "but the country is
kind of exhausted with it."

Perhaps that explains why Yonkers seems to be trying to keep AIDS in its place.

Asked about the ban on social service agencies in the re-emerging downtown,
Ian Kipp, who runs the downtown business improvement district, said, "Our
experience has been that these uses are detrimental for redevelopment."

Two-thirds of the county's AIDS cases can be traced to intravenous drug
use, and research shows that needle exchange programs - used elsewhere in
New York State - cut infection without increasing drug use. But still, many
people see handing out hypodermic needles as overly addict-friendly. If
condoms make politicians cringe, Dr. Lipsman said, needles are a "political
third rail."

Just ask a certain former president. As president, Mr. Clinton refused to
lift a ban on federal financing of needle exchanges, a decision he now says
he regrets.

Which is why he should not be shocked by political sidestepping - globally
or locally.

"The politicians don't want to acknowledge it and talk about it in their
countries, " Dr. Lipsman said, "just like local politicians don't want to
say we have one of the worst problems in New York State."