County Considers Ban on Job, Housing Bias Against AIDS Patients

Discrimination against Ventura County residents with AIDS would be banned under a proposed ordinance that will come before the county Board of Supervisors next week.

The law would protect the housing and employment rights of people with AIDS or the AIDS virus and other communicable illnesses including chronic hepatitis B.

The law would also make it illegal for businesses to deny services to such residents and would protect their rights to county services and educational programs.

Many other cities and counties in the state already have AIDS anti-discrimination laws, including the city of Los Angeles, which passed an ordinance in 1985. And the California Fair Employment and Housing Act also prohibits discrimination against people with acquired immune deficiency syndrome or with the AIDS virus.

But Jackson Wheeler, co-chairman of the county’s AIDS Advisory Committee, which recommended the ordinance, said the proposed county law to be considered by the supervisors on Tuesday would “lend credence to existing laws and support them.”

“In some instances if a law is already on the books and a local ordinance supportive of that law is passed it may speed up the process” in civil litigation cases, Wheeler said.

Health workers across the county say the ordinance is needed because there have been a number of reported incidents of discrimination against people with AIDS or HIV infection, and many more incidents that may go unreported.

AIDS discrimination problems “usually come just from ignorance,” said Reese Welsh, director of AIDS Care, a nonprofit group that provides free support services to people with HIV infection.

He cited the example of a 5-year-old boy whose family was “kicked out of their house at a moment’s notice” two years ago when the landlord discovered the child had the AIDS virus.

“People are just afraid,” Welsh said. “I can understand people’s concern, but the public needs to know there’s really no fear in having someone living next door or in the same building who has HIV,” the AIDS virus.

Diane Seyle, the county’s AIDS coordinator, said that although some county residents have filed complaints under the state law, “a lot of people haven’t filed anything because they didn’t want their diagnosis to become known publicly.”

In a report to be presented to the board, county Medical Director Lawrence E. Dodds, AIDS Advisory Committee co-chairman, said the need for an anti-discrimination law became apparent as the committee monitored the health care community.

“Persons with HIV infections are denied housing and other services because of their infection,” Dodds said.

The report also said there may be a need for an AIDS residential care facility in one to three years, although any county role in the operation of such a facility has yet to be determined.

As of June 13, there have been 227 cases of AIDS in the county since officials began keeping records, and 158 deaths, Wheeler said.

The number of adults infected with the AIDS virus in the county is not known, although officials estimate it may be as high as 2,000, Seyle said. Although there are no reported cases of children with AIDS, eight are infected with the virus and are under medical supervision, she said.

In addition to protecting employee and housing rights, the ordinance would make it illegal to require prospective employees or tenants to take a medical test to determine whether they have a communicable illness.

The law would give county residents with AIDS or other illnesses who believe they have been discriminated against a means for filing a civil lawsuit, Wheeler said.

If approved, the ordinance would apply to unincorporated county areas and not to cities, Wheeler said. The population in the county’s unincorporated areas is 86,873, according to U.S. Census figures.

“It would certainly be my hope that all the cities would follow suit at some point,” Wheeler said, “that they would see it’s a right thing to do, an ethical thing to do, and in many ways a preventive thing to do.”