Minority AIDS Project May Fold, Appeals for Cash : Health: The Rev. Carl Bean says the outlook is bleak for his organization. He vows to fast until enough money is raised.

A minister who founded what is believed to be the nation’s first organization to serve AIDS sufferers in the black community announced Tuesday he may soon have to close its doors for lack of money and, in a broad appeal for financial assistance, vowed to fast until the resources are found to stay open.

Speaking from the pulpit of the small church that also serves as headquarters for the Minority AIDS Project, the Rev. Carl Bean appealed to the private sector--from corporate sponsors, to local residents, to Hollywood entertainers--for money, saying that--if the organization does not receive between $300,000 and $400,000 soon--the project will have difficulty staying open beyond the next 30 days.

“We need it like yesterday,” said Bean, who was surrounded at the morning press conference by the organization’s staff and board of directors. “ . . . When somebody’s knocking on the door with AIDS and they weigh 98 pounds and they’re hungry, you can’t say, ‘God loves you.’ You’ve got to give them a piece of bread.”

And until the money comes in to buy it, Bean said, “I will be on this fast.”

Founded in 1985 to provide services to African-Americans and other people of color suffering from acquired immune deficiency syndrome, the project serves between 500 and 700 clients and has an annual operating budget of $1.6 million, Bean said.

The organization services include a home for AIDS sufferers and weekly support groups. It also gives more than $5,000 a month to more than 40 clients who do not have the money to meet their basic needs. And the organization needs hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay overdue bills and its day-to-day operating costs, Bean said.

Although much of the project’s funding comes from government grants, Bean said, the grants require the organization to raise the money on its own, spend it and then bill the government for reimbursement.

Within the impoverished community he serves, Bean said raising that amount of money can be difficult, forcing him to sometimes take money set aside for utilities to pay staff members, or to use the rent money to buy food for clients.

“We can’t believe government can do everything,” Bean said. Therefore, he said he is appealing to all people, but particularly to the black community.

“There needs to be a community response to this crisis,” he said. “There has to be a response to this disease that might wipe our people out.”

In Los Angeles County, 36% of the people with AIDS are African-American or Latino, according to the Minority AIDS Project, and many of them are undocumented workers with no possibility of obtaining government assistance, or poor people with no insurance, no jobs, and, sometimes, no homes.

Bean added that it is often difficult for small organizations like his to get funds from corporate sponsors and the general public because they are overshadowed by larger groups considered to be more mainstream like AIDS Project Los Angeles.

“It’s access to money, that’s always been the problem,” he said. “Often as people of color, we can’t get into the boardrooms. But there are people in those boardrooms who will give to the poor, if they know where they are and what they need.”

Robert E. Frangenberg, director of the Los Angeles County AIDS Program, said that the county does not have a mechanism to provide emergency funds for private AIDS organizations in need.

But if the money is not found somewhere and the Minority AIDS Project is forced to close, its clients say there will be many people left with nowhere to go.

“Without MAP I’m pretty sure I would have been dead right now, because I didn’t care,” said Gregory Jenkins, 34, who was homeless when he first came to the organization’s headquarters in Unity Fellowship Church on West Jefferson Boulevard shortly after being diagnosed as having AIDS. “They fed me, gave me clothes, helped me get my Social Security.

“I’ve been to other agencies that put me on lists, gave me social workers you can’t get in contact with. But here there’s always someone to talk to . . . . (They) give you dignity. Some hope. Some love.”

Less than an hour after the press conference, a woman came by the project’s headquarters, holding a $5,000 cashier’s check. The woman said she had attended services at the church recently and heard of the project’s plight.

“She said she told herself when the Lord blessed her, she was going to bless the Minority AIDS Project,” Bean said.

” . . . And she put it in my hand.”