Uncategorized

New Documentary “End Game: AIDS in Black America”

Published

13 years ago

January 18, 2013

From left to right: Renatta Simone, producer, writer and director of End Game: HIV in Black America, Nel Davis and POST journalist Jesse Brooks. Nel and Brooks got a chance to tell their experience of being HIV positive in the film.

Left to right: Post reporter Jesse Brooks, Nel Davis with Host of KQED Forum – Michael Krasny.

By Jesse Brooks

The public is invited to participate in a conversation at the Bay Area’s first public showing of PBS’s Frontline documentary “End Game: AIDS in Black America.”
This documentary explores how politics, social factors and cultural factors allowed the AIDS epidemic to spread rapidly in the African American community over the past three decades.
The film was originally released in July 2012, and premiered at the 2012 International AIDS conference held in Washington. It has done what Renatta Simone, producer, writer and director intended it to do, encouraging people to start to talk and be aware of the conditions African Americans face regarding HIV/AIDS in America.
In 1986, 20 percent of all people in the United States living with AIDS were African American. The most recent statistics from Center for Disease Control (CDC) indicate that 45 percent of all new cases of HIV infection are among African Americans.
In the film Simone explores why the HIV epidemic is so much more prevalent among African Americans than among whites. “The film is about race in America as much as it is about HIV, how a virus has exploited our inability to deal with our problems around race,” said Simone, who also produced the award winning series, “The Age of AIDS,” which appeared on Frontline in 2006.
Why is HIV so much worse in the Black Community? This is a question that comes up all the time at speaking engagements. This film gives the answer. Three years in the making, this groundbreaking documentary film tells the story of how, from the earliest days, prejudice, silence and stigma allowed the virus to spread deep into the Black community.
The film was shot coast to coast in Los Angeles, Oakland, Atlanta, Birmingham, Selma, New York, Boston and Washington, D.C.; in churches, clinics, a high school classroom, a prison, a nightclub, a restaurant kitchen and on the street.
Meet others from the film, like Nel Davis, who told her story of being 65-year-old Black woman, infected by a deacon she married from her church and how she found out his status when a piece of paper with the positive HIV test results fell out of his bible one day while she was cleaning.
According to Dr. Marsha Martin, an HIV prevention leader, “We have achieved some things as Black people in America because the civil rights movement got us to some places. But at the same time, AIDS is everywhere, showing us all the places that we have missed, saying look over here, look over here, and look over here!”
Martin has worked in Oakland with Get Screened Oakland, a mayoral initiative that encourages testing.
The showing is also a kick-off of a year-long calendar of events of two merging groups: the Bay Area Treatment Advocacy Network (BTAN) and the Bay Area Regional African American HIV/AIDS State of Emergency Coalition (BARAASEC).The two groups are joining forces to advance HIV treatment in the Black community and to ensure that the community is prepared to participate in the treatment process.
Whether watching “End Game” online or at the community conversation, activists have been at this for 30 years, and they are at a different point in the evolution of the crisis. Now is the time to be talking about the “End Game.”
“End game: AIDS in Black America” and an intimate conversation with the community, will take place at 3 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 27 at the New Parkway Theatre, 474 24th St. in Oakland.
To purchase tickets for $10, go to Spectrumfilm012013.eventbrite.com or call (510) 575-8245.

Oakland Post

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Oakland Housing and Community Development Department Awards $80.5 Million to Affordable Housing Developments

Published

6 months ago

June 17, 2025

Oakland Post

Special to The Post

The City of Oakland’s Housing and Community Development Department (Oakland HCD) announced its awardees for the 2024-2025 New Construction of Multifamily Affordable Housing Notice of Funding Availability (New Construction NOFA) today Five permanently affordable housing developments received awards out of 24 applications received by the Department, with award amounts ranging from $7 million to $28 million.

In a statement released on Jan. 16, Oakland’s HCD stated, “Five New Construction Multifamily Affordable Housing Development projects awarded a total of $80.5 million to develop 583 affordable rental homes throughout Oakland. Awardees will leverage the City’s investments to apply for funding from the state and private entities.”

In December, the office of Rebecca Kaplan, interim District 2 City Councilmember, worked with HCD to allocate an additional $10 Million from Measure U to the funding pool. The legislation also readopted various capital improvement projects including street paving and upgrades to public facilities.

The following Oakland affordable housing developments have been awarded in the current round:

Mandela Station Affordable

238 Affordable Units including 60 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $15 million + previously awarded $18 million
Developer: Mandela Station LP (Pacific West Communities, Inc. and Strategic Urban Development Alliance, LLC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 1451 7th St.

Liberation Park Residences

118 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $28 million
Developer: Eden Housing and Black Cultural Zone
City Council District: 6
Address: 7101 Foothill Blvd.

34th & San Pablo

59 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $7 million
Developer: 34SP Development LP (EBALDC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 3419-3431 San Pablo Ave.

The Eliza

96 Affordable Units including 20 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $20 million
Developer: Mercy Housing California
City Council District: 3
Address: 2125 Telegraph Ave.

3135 San Pablo

72 Affordable Units including 36 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $10.5 million
Developer: SAHA and St. Mary’s Center
City Council District: 3
Address: 3515 San Pablo Ave.

The source of this story is the media reltations office of District 2 City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan.

Oakland Post

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Activism

Oakland Housing and Community Development Department Awards $80.5 Million to Affordable Housing Developments

Published

10 months ago

January 30, 2025

Oakland Post

Rebecca Kaplan, interim District 2 city councilmember. File photo.

Special to The Post

The following Oakland affordable housing developments have been awarded in the current round:

Mandela Station Affordable

238 Affordable Units including 60 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $15 million + previously awarded $18 million
Developer: Mandela Station LP (Pacific West Communities, Inc. and Strategic Urban Development Alliance, LLC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 1451 7th St.

Liberation Park Residences

118 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $28 million
Developer: Eden Housing and Black Cultural Zone
City Council District: 6
Address: 7101 Foothill Blvd.

34th & San Pablo

59 Affordable Units including 30 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $7 million
Developer: 34SP Development LP (EBALDC)
City Council District: 3
Address: 3419-3431 San Pablo Ave.

The Eliza

96 Affordable Units, including 20 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $20 million
Developer: Mercy Housing California
City Council District: 3
Address: 2125 Telegraph Ave.

3135 San Pablo

72 Affordable Units including 36 dedicated for Homeless/Special Needs
Award: $10.5 million
Developer: SAHA and St. Mary’s Center
City Council District: 3
Address: 3515 San Pablo Ave.

The source of this story is media reltations office of District 2 City Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Alameda County

Oakland Acquisition Company’s Acquisition of County’s Interest in Coliseum Property on the Verge of Completion

The Board of Supervisors is committed to closing the deal expeditiously, and County staff have worked tirelessly to move the deal forward on mutually agreeable terms. The parties are down to the final details and, with the cooperation of OAC and Coliseum Way Partners, LLC, the Board will take a public vote at an upcoming meeting to seal this transaction.

Published

11 months ago

January 11, 2025

Oakland Post

Alameda County Board of Supervisors Chairman David Haubert. Official photo.

Special to The Post

The County of Alameda announced this week that a deal allowing the Oakland Acquisition Company, LLC, (“OAC”) to acquire the County’s 50% undivided interest in the Oakland- Alameda County Coliseum complex is in the final stages of completion.

Oakland has already finalized a purchase and sale agreement with OAC for its interest in the property. OAC’s acquisition of the County’s property interest will achieve two longstanding goals of the County:

The Oakland-Alameda Coliseum complex will finally be under the control of a sole owner with capacity to make unilateral decisions regarding the property; and
The County will be out of the sports and entertainment business, free to focus and rededicate resources to its core safety net

In an October 2024 press release from the City of Oakland, the former Oakland mayor described the sale of its 50% interest in the property as an “historic achievement” stating that the transaction will “continue to pay dividends for generations to come.”

The Board of Supervisors is pleased to facilitate single-entity ownership of this property uniquely centered in a corridor of East Oakland that has amazing potential.

“The County is committed to bringing its negotiations with OAC to a close,” said Board President David Haubert.