Rainbow Health, an agency providing a myriad of services to HIV positive and LGBTQ+ communities in Minnesota, closed its doors on July 19. The reason given by the organization’s board of directors was financial, as they stated they had “reached a point where continuing operations (was) no longer sustainable.”
The announcement – which, for staff, came only a day before, during a 12:15 p.m. meeting was sudden.
“They told us the organization had no more money, that they were broke and they couldn’t pay us anymore,” said Michele Peterson, who spent five years working at Rainbow Health as a benefits counselor.
Ash Tifa Credit: Supplied
Ash Tifa, former legal services program coordinator for Rainbow Health, was scheduled to host a legal name change clinic on the 19th in partnership with Family Tree Clinic. The majority of those utilizing these services, said Tifa, are trans and nonbinary clients. Though she, like other staff members, had only recently learned about the organization’s closure, Tifa went ahead with the name change clinic, which, at around 50 people, “was our most attended clinic to date.”
Yesterday, at a press conference held outside the building that housed Rainbow Health in downtown Minneapolis, Tifa confirmed that the loss of Rainbow Health does not mean an end to these name change clinics.
“Those clinics will continue to happen despite the closure of Rainbow Health,” said Tifa.
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History
Rainbow Health was founded in 1983 as The Minnesota AIDS Project. Later, the organization merged with others and became known as JustUs Health, with its name later changed to Rainbow Health in 2021. The name JustUs Health, according to an open letter from employees published online in April 2022, was protested by employees at the time of its adoption, since it was also the name of a support group at Red Door Clinic for Black men living with HIV.
Rik Kutcher, former HIV and LGBTQ+ aging services advocate for Rainbow Health, has had experiences as both a client and employee. Kutcher reached out to the organization 13 years ago, when he was “struggling with an addiction to crystal meth.” Connecting with case management at Rainbow Health, Kutcher was able to receive treatment with the organization’s support, along with financial help, transitional housing and food assistance. He also worked in peer support for HIV at Rainbow Health.
In his capacity as aging services advocate, Kutcher worked to support LGBTQ+ and HIV positive clients 50 years and older, becoming, he was once told, “the (voice of) HIV and aging for the state of Minnesota.” When Kutcher was diagnosed as HIV positive at 23 years old, he had no blueprint for how he would age.
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“I did not prepare for a future,” said Kutcher. “I did not continue my education. I did not save money. It started a whole pattern of ‘Today could be my last day, why think about the future?’”
Now, he notes, things are different, with medications lowering the viral load of HIV to the point where it is no longer able to be spread. Rainbow Health, prior to its closure, was one of the organizations in Minnesota that received Ryan White funding from the federal government to support people living with HIV socially, medically and financially. The funding is named after one of the early faces of the disease, a preteen who contracted HIV from a blood transfusion.
The organization’s closure comes during the fourth year of what are described as HIV outbreaks in Minnesota. Ramsey and Hennepin counties declared outbreaks in 2020, according to the Minnesota Department of Health, while the Duluth area declared an outbreak in 2021. Currently, according to the Department, there are more than 9,600 people in Minnesota who are living with HIV, though not all of these infections are the result of these outbreaks.
“We see roughly 300 new HIV infections a year (in Minnesota),” said Matthew Toburen, executive director of The Aliveness Project, an organization focused on supporting those living with HIV. “If you look at our neighbors in Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa, they’re all seeing declining HIV infection. (In) Minnesota, we’re seeing a spike.”
A tumultuous environment
Even before its sudden shutdown, Rainbow Health was facing a variety of internal challenges.
In the 2022 open letter published by Rainbow Health employees, management was said to have engaged in various bad practices, including “tokenization and exploitation of Black staff,” and “potentially/perceived retaliatory employment termination.” At the time, the letter stated, “60% of the clients identify as BIPOC and over 27% of clients identify as Black or African American.”
“If an employee disagreed with the way things (were) being handled, soon after, they weren’t at the agency,” said Kutcher.
It was the concerns outlined in this open letter, added Kutcher, that prompted some employees at Rainbow Health to reach out to the Service Employees International Union Healthcare of Minnesota and Iowa (SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa) to unionize their workplace. While he was initially skeptical, Kutcher said, unionizing brought many benefits, including bringing up salaries to a “market level.”
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However, said Kutcher, the board did not honor their obligations in the union contract. The contract had called for committees to be formed with staff and management, but even though “staff would push for those committee meetings”, no meetings took place. Additionally, Kutcher said, staff later found out that while the union contract said union dues would be paid to the union 10 days after being deducted, three or four months went by where the union had still not been paid by Rainbow Health.
Later, the staff was told the organization was having trouble with money and would only be able to pay them through July. Providers working with the behavioral health clinic, said Kutcher, were encouraged to take on more clients in order to “bring more money into the agency” despite many of them being “maxed out.” Shortly after, 67% of the unionized employees voted “100% no confidence” in Chief Executive Officer Jeremy Hanson Willis’ ability to lead the organization, which then led to his resignation.
The final act of the board that went against the union contract was its announcement of the closure.
“We were supposed to have 30 days notice before the end of employment,” said Peterson. “That would’ve been 30 days to be able to wrap up things, try to help our clients as much as we could, but we didn’t get any of that.”
Michele Peterson at the press conference Credit: MinnPost photo by Deanna Pistono
In a virtual press conference hosted by former employees of Rainbow Health represented by SEIU Healthcare Minnesota & Iowa on July 22, Tifa outlined employee demands: that the board pay employees 30 days of wages, along with payouts for unused paid time off.
Filling the gap
The most important question in the wake of Rainbow Health’s closure is about access: where do clients and providers go to receive or to provide services? Various organizations have been working to answer this question, through stepping in to provide services, offering employment opportunities, and fundraising. These organizations include the Aliveness Project, PFund and Interna Mental Health & Wellness.
The Aliveness Project is currently in the process of assuming various contracts previously held by Rainbow Health, as announced by the Minnesota Department of Human Services on July 30. Among these, said Natasha Merz, assistant commissioner for the Minnesota Department of Human Services, are several Ryan White funded contracts, including the Minnesota AIDS line – a phone line which refers clients to HIV support services – along with food support, including delivery programs and vouchers.
Matthew Toburen Credit: Supplied
In an interview on July 31, Toburen confirmed that the Aliveness Project was also able to financially assist 32 former clients of Rainbow Health with rent payments. The organization also assisted 30 other clients who had previously relied on emergency financial assistance from Rainbow Health’s Every Penny Counts program with their living expenses.
“They were having their utilities disconnected. They were having evictions,” said Toburen. “So we were laser focused on those 30 people getting those bills paid before the end of this month.”
Most of the contracts being assumed by the Aliveness Project, said Merz, are Ryan White funded programs. This, said Toburen, fits the organization’s “first focus” of providing “core HIV and prevention services, that we have the existing infrastructure (for) and that we are suited to really get back quickly.”
Given the variety of services Rainbow Health offered in addition to HIV support, however, other organizations will need to step up in order to ensure clients have access to the full spectrum of services that Rainbow Health once provided.
“They definitely took on a really vast number of services,” said Aaron Zimmerman, the executive director of PFund Foundation, a philanthropic foundation which began in 1987 as a means to support LGBTQ+ Minnesotans living with HIV, as well as allow members of the community to will their estate towards community initiatives after their deaths. Zimmerman himself was previously a fundraising intern at the Minnesota AIDS Project.
“Their legal work, their senior services, the support groups, the mental health, all of it was so needed and unfortunately, there’s no exact successor organization that will take on every single service,” said Zimmerman. “There isn’t a duplicative organization in every town across Minnesota. So we’re really thinking, how are we going to support our folks in Greater Minnesota? How are we going to support folks who had to take two buses in order to get to their appointment at Rainbow Health?”
Aaron Zimmerman at Red Ribbon Ride 2015 Credit: Supplied
PFund Foundation, said Zimmerman, is currently working to fundraise from both individuals and peer foundations for various organizations, including the Aliveness Project and the Family Tree Clinic, that are working to fill the gap in services left by Rainbow Health. Zimmerman said the short term goal for the individual revitalization campaign was $25,000.
For clients seeking mental health treatment and mental health providers seeking employment or assistance with employment, Interna Mental Health & Wellness, a therapeutic collective, is stepping in to provide both. By July 26, said Kaylee Bond, cofounder and therapist at Interna, the organization received 20 to 40 referrals for patients previously cared for at Rainbow Health.
“All of us opened extra spots on our schedule to take clients that lost services immediately,” said Bond, adding that Interna is in the process of setting up support groups for those who lost services and has been “working with Family Tree (Clinic) to cross refer people who need gender affirming care or upcoming surgery requests for their gender affirming care.”
Interna is also offering job interviews to mental health providers previously employed by Rainbow Health, along with resume reviews and consultation calls for those seeking employment elsewhere.
“If you want a referral you can come here, but we’ll also find a place for you if this is not the right place,” said Bond. “That’s for employees or clients. Just knowing where to go is a first step.”
Starting a conversation
The closure of Rainbow Health for employees and for clients is disheartening, especially, noted Tifa, at this time.
“Minnesota is a beacon nationally for (trans people and HIV positive communities) at a time where nationally, the picture is growing bleaker by the day, particularly for trans folks,” said Tifa.
“Trans people are at a crossroads where we need even more support than we currently have. Losing vital services, even just these name change clinics, is a real detriment to our community.”
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Even in the wake of the loss, however, Tifa spoke about how employees continued to “ensure that clients (weren’t) left completely hung out to dry,” noting that some employees were continuing to work pro bono as of July 25 to ensure clients would be able to pay their rent on time.
Rainbow Health was not the only HIV support group that closed this year. Prior to the closure of Rainbow, the Aliveness Project, said Toburen, had been working on filling the gap left by another organization’s closure – in this case, the African American AIDS Task Force, which ceased operating in January.
“Losing (the) African American AIDS task force (and) losing Rainbow is really disruptive for everyone – for the people but also for the systems that helped serve and support those people,” said Toburen.
Funding from the federal Department of Human Services for Ryan White programs has also been lowered as a result of declining state rebate revenue. States receive this revenue from pharmaceutical companies that have “agreements with drug manufacturers to provide HIV medications at a certain cost” explained Merz.
“If we want to continue to fund services at the rate when the rebate money was higher, it’s gonna take some additional state investment to bring us back up to or consistent with past funding because of that decline in federal rebate money,” said Merz.
An open letter from Toburen and other leaders of organizations supporting those living with HIV, including former Rainbow CEO Willis, called on the Minnesota Legislature to ensure that Ryan White funding would continue in 2023. In the 2023 Human Service Omnibus Bill, $12,100,000 was made available until June 30, 2025 for HIV and AIDS support services. This, however, is a one-time allocation.
For Toburen, the closure of Rainbow Health and the African American AIDS Task Force should prompt legislators in Minnesota to develop a clear plan for addressing HIV.
“I am hopeful that this crisis will force a conversation and force our government agencies (and) our elected officials to say, ‘What is our vision and plan for HIV/AIDS in Minnesota?,” said Toburen. “Because what we’re doing isn’t working.”
Lee Start opens the press conference on August 8, 2024. Credit: MinnPost photo by Deanna Pistono Credit: MinnPost photo by Deanna Pistono
“Pay us what we are owed”
On Thursday, a second union press conference was held in front of the building that once housed Rainbow Health. Though she had planned to share news of progress in discussions with management, Tifa said the board, which had met twice with them in previous bargaining sessions, decided to “cease bargaining altogether.”
“This is a continuation of the same pattern of behavior that we have seen all along,” said Tifa. “Pay us what we are owed.”
As the former employees of Rainbow Health stood and spoke outside the building, passing cars honked their horns in support.
“We should not be punished for (the board’s) ineptitude at running a business,” said Lee Start, a psychotherapist and social worker formerly at Rainbow Health. “Our demands continue to be clear – compensate us for 30 days of employment, as we were given inadequate notice of termination for our union contact, and pay out all of our unused paid time off. We are also demanding an authentic apology and explanation.”
Uzoamoka McLaughlin, the former medical case manager coordinator at Rainbow Health, stepped forward to speak and to appeal to the Minnesota attorney general and the government to look into the running of nonprofits in Minnesota by boards of directors.
“Some of (my former colleagues) can’t afford to pay their rent,” said McLaughlin. “Who are they going to turn to? Some of them bought houses, some of them are paying car loans. Some of them are sick in the hospital, and we had to set up a GoFundMe for them. These are people who were earning salaries.
“I stand here today to implore the (Attorney General’s) Office – we are human beings. We have families that have been violated. These people come out every time we call for meetings because this is our last resort. We don’t have a voice if it was not for the union … We’re standing here today to say that we are not backing down.”
