Richard Elovich

Background: Richard is a 35 year old, white, Jewish gay (mostly … it’s complicated. He married a woman in 1978, and most of his long relationships pre-1989 were with women) man. He grew up in Kew Gardens, then Douglaston, then Little Neck, Queens. At 14, he moved in with a family running a small hotel near the Catskills. Richard went to art school and moved into Manhattan. The “Early life” and “Writing, curating, and performance” sections on his Wikipedia page give a good summary of his pre-ACT UP life (the "HIV activism and organizing” section is good too, though it focuses mostly on Richard’s post-1989 activity): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Elovich

Richard got into drugs: alcohol, hallucinogens, then opiates/heroin, then got sober in 1982.

Role in ACT UP:  Richard is involved with Gran Fury, a small collective of people creating much of the graphic design for ACT UP. He has also been involved in Treatment issues. Richard is starting to get involved with advocating for needle exchange: making clean syringes available to intravenous drug users to reduce their HIV risk from sharing syringes. He will want to make sure that any Target City Hall demands or other relevant actions include a push for the city to implement needle exchange, even though it is not currently legal.

Groups/friends at the meeting: Gran Fury, Treatment and Data Committee, Debra Levine 

Specific tasks at the March 13, 1989 meeting: With Debra Levine, he is on the agenda to propose an ACT UP trip to Albany tomorrow (March 14) to protest healthcare budget cuts. Governor Mario Cuomo has proposed a massive $350 million cut in Medicaid spending that will affect all New Yorkers, including people with AIDS and especially poorer people with AIDS. The protest tomorrow is being jointly organized by the New York state private hospitals and the union for healthcare workers. He and Debra should acknowledge that many people in the room have had terrible experiences with hospitals and healthcare workers when attempting to get quality, compassionate care for themselves and their loved ones with AIDS. In light of this, and in light of the risk that budget cuts could have for people with AIDS, Richard and Debra should ask the Floor to debate whether ACT UP should participate in the protest, and then vote on it. If the Floor votes to endorse ACT UP's participation, Richard and Debra should find out how many people will go so they can know how many buses are needed. They should make sure to give the people who are going the information on where/when the buses will leave/return, tell people that round-trip tickets on the bus will be $10, and ask Rollerena to sell seats on the buses around the floor (right now, not at the end of the meeting).  

Link to New York Times article about the Albany issues

Additional information: https://actuporalhistory.org/numerical-interviews/072-richard-elovich