Houston, February 19, 2009 – The standards for running an article has to improve. The article published in this magazine about God Bless HIV & AIDS Awareness is so blatantly slandering the name of a man, his family and an entire organization. It would be a shame if he did not sue you guys for printing this article that has no facts.

Can you see the big poetic picture here? When you pass these people you feel like they are marring the Houston image but in fact they remind us of the truth that is, yes a bit hard to look at... HIV & AIDS is infecting our community. If you believe that some of these people are infected - it makes the message all the more effective (I don't know if that is their intention but it does seem to work that way). These people hand you information about this disease that you can you don't need a computer to read. Information that will let you know that 10,000 White males in this city is living with HIV, nearly 7,000 Black males are living with HIV and just a little more than 3,000 Hispanic males are living with this deadly disease in our city.

Weather you give money or not you see the shirts that reminds you that we are at war with HIV & AIDS. If the fact that homeless people are reminding you is a problem, then help them get another job. But the truth is the 25 or 30 percent in their bucket as you say; may not just be pocket change to them. It could be a real CHANGE, a chance to do something for the community and feed themselves in the process.
If your concern is that the money that is raised is not being used to help the people, then tell that to the homeless person that just got his stipend and can buy his own dinner because he worked for a cause.
The writer is very ambiguous to believe that she can determine which organization should be called fund-raisers and which ones can be called beggars. Does she know if the shirts are donated? Is the printing information is donated? Is the gas for transportation is donate? What about the sense of respect and self-worth that the volunteers for this organization feels, is it donated? So would it be safe to say that this writer doesn't know how these funds are being spent; and should have asked before writing an article to attack an organization that is working in the trenches for the very same cause as her organization?

To be honest this article sounds like she is attacking her competition, but it would a shame if the writer thought that only her organization is worthy and is doing something about spreading the information about this disease. It is even more shameful that if she felt their information was inferior that she was attack them instead of provide them with better information.