State

Equality California today announced the endorsements of 10 strong pro-equality candidates for Congress, the California Assembly and local offices throughout the state. “LGBT equality depends heavily on the people we send to represent us at every level of government,” said Rick Zbur, executive director of Equality California. “Each of our endorsed candidates has a long history of supporting the LGBT community, and we know they will be staunch advocates for us in Washington, DC, in Sacramento and across California.” The candidates are as follows: U.S. Congress: Bao Nguyen (CD 46) – As the current, openly gay mayor of Garden Grove, […]

  Strength for the Journey is a 5 day retreat providing a safe, caring, and healing community that fosters spiritual and emotional growth. In addition to providing the physical needs of a retreat, the program also offers various group workshops on health and wellness, medication adherence, nutrition, and diet and exercise. One of the main intentions of the retreat is to provide the circumstances in which people can inspire and encourage one another to develop new attitudes about living with HIV. This year’s retreat will take place Sept. 12 – 16 at Camp Cedar Glen near Julian, Calif. Strength for […]

 Project Inform, a founding member of the California HIV Alliance and the managing member of the California Hepatitis Alliance, applauds the California Legislature and Governor Brown’s support for HIV and viral hepatitis services in the Fiscal Year 2016-2017 budget. The new state budget, signed into law on June 27th: Establishes an HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) financial assistance program, which will cover PrEP-related medical expenses for those with annual incomes below 500% of the federal poverty level; Allows the California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Office of AIDS’ Health Insurance Premium Payment (OA-HIPP) program to cover insurance premiums and medical out-of-pocket […]

Voters in California may be less than thrilled to realize that a whopping 17 measures have qualified for the ballot in the November general election. All voters may be wise to cancel their cable television subscriptions to avoid what is likely to be an unprecedented amount of political advertising. Three measures bear on HIV and hepatitis C, and Project Inform will be educating its constituents about their potential impact in coming months. We wanted to give PIPeNews readers some early word about them. STATE PRESCRIPTION DRUG PURCHASES. Proposition 61 would prohibit the state from purchasing any pharmaceutical for health care […]

The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health (Public Health), in conjunction with the County of Orange Health Care Agency and City of Long Beach Department of Health and Human Services, is expanding vaccination recommendations for Invasive Meningococcal Disease to include all gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) in addition to all persons with HIV infection. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the California Department of Public Health have assisted local health departments with the investigation and management of this outbreak. After analysis of all information related to this increase in cases, […]

Nancy Pelosi  Today, the Equality Forum, the nation’s premier lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) civil rights summit, announced that it will present the 21st Annual International Role Model Award to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), for her strong support of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. The 21st Annual International Role Model Award will be presented to Democratic Leader Pelosi by Supreme Court Marriage Equality Plaintiff, Jim Obergefell, at Equality Forum’s LGBT Champion Awards on Thursday, July 28th during the Democratic National Convention. The 21st Annual International Role Model Award is the nation’s longest standing award […]

Community HousingWorks (CHW) and the San Diego LGBT Community Center (The Center) held a groundbreaking ceremony last week for the highly anticipated North Park Senior Apartments, San Diego’s first LGBT-friendly affordable senior housing community. Speakers included Assemblymember Toni Atkins; City Councilmember Todd Gloria; Sue Reynolds, President and CEO of Community HousingWorks; Dr. Delores Jacobs, CEO of the San Diego LGBT Community Center; and several #LGBTseniors. CHW is developing 76 senior apartment homes at the corner of Texas Street and Howard Avenue, just south of El Cajon Boulevard, in North Park. Construction on the $27.5 million community will take approximately 18 […]

  Michael Colbruno Michael Colbruno, a managing partner with the Milo Group of California, has been elected President of the Port of Oakland’s Board of Port Commissioners. Colbruno becomes the first openly LGBT Oakland Port Commissioner to lead the Board. He co-founded the country’s first LGBT Port affinity group with San Francisco Port Commissioner Leslie Katz and San Diego Port Commissioner Bob Nelson, which focuses on making California ports safe and welcoming workplaces for LGBT people. Both Katz and Nelson served as presidents of their respective Port boards last year. The former two-term member and past chair of the Oakland […]