Churches look at drugs, HIV/AIDS

The Rev. Stephen Tucker has seen the toll drugs have taken on the District.

Mr. Tucker serves as pastor of New Commandment Baptist Church in Northwest, which sits across the street from the Park Morton public-housing project — notorious for drug problems.

The church operates one of six counseling centers for substance abusers and those infected with HIV/AIDS. The centers are a new initiative among several D.C. churches to address what D.C. Health Department Director Gregg A. Pane called “two of our biggest health problems in the District today.”

Dr. Pane yesterday applauded the program, partially funded by the health department.

“They’re going to listen to you,” he said. “They’re going to listen to their preachers.”

The announcement came a day after National HIV Testing Day, when the District made public a youth-education campaign to prevent the spread of HIV among teens and young adults. Several ministers and D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat, were tested yesterday.

The six churches have opened “conversation centers” where those with substance abuse or HIV/AIDS and their families can go for counseling, testing, educational materials or referrals.

The focus of the initiative is not to condemn those seeking help or preach about morality and sin, Mr. Tucker said.

“If I’m in a lake and I’m drowning, I don’t want you to tell me I shouldn’t have jumped in because I can’t swim,” he said. “I want you to pull me out. If I’m in a burning building, I don’t want you to tell me I shouldn’t have been playing with matches. I want you to pull me out. It’s not so much how they got it. It’s what we’re going to do now.”

Nor is the initiative meant as an evangelism tool, said the Rev. Henry Gaston, pastor of Johnson Memorial Baptist Church in Southeast, one of the churches that opened a counseling center.

Covenant Baptist Church, on South Capitol Street Southwest; First Baptist Church, on Randolph Street Northwest; Israel Baptist Church, on Saratoga Avenue Northeast; and Trinity Episcopal Church on Piney Branch Road Northwest are also participating.

Many churches shy away from ministries dealing with HIV/AIDS or substance abuse, but it’s important for the faith community to play an active role in prevention and treatment, said Sterling Tucker of the Trinity Development Corporation, a nonprofit group that handles program funding.

It’s important “to invite the religious community to be more actively involved in the issue of HIV/AIDS because unless that community embraces all of us … we’ll have a difficult time” addressing the issue, he said.

D.C. Council Chairman Vincent C. Gray, at-large Democrat, applauded the church’s efforts and said the D.C. government has taken an active interest in HIV/AIDS prevention.

The District is getting closer to defeating a federal ban on a publicly funded needle-exchange program, which will help fight the spread of the virus among intravenous drug users, he said.

“The reality is we have got to do as much as we can,” Mr. Gray said. “The rate of transmission between young people is incredibly alarming.”