CAP + Our House + Prism Health are proud to sponsor the 2023 QDoc Film Festival! Founded in 2007 by Russ Gage and David Weissman, and directed by Molly King and Deb Kemp since 2017, QDoc has shown award-winning films fresh from Sundance, Berlin, Hot Docs, Tribeca, Amsterdam and other top-tier festivals. We have shown historical films, personal stories, artist biographies, experimental work and topical films dealing with current controversies.

I was born in 1980 in southern Oregon. We moved to Portland when I was 7. I became sexually active at the age of 12. When I was 13, my mother allowed my 17-year-old boyfriend to move in with me, her, and my brother, sister, and best friend. To this day, I do not understand why my mom allowed this…

On January 28, Jonathan Frochtzwajg, CAP’s Public Policy & Grants Manager, had the pleasure of joining OPB’s Think Out Loud for an important conversation regarding the current blood shortage affecting our region (and our nation). “The shortage has led to renewed calls for the federal government to lift one specific restriction on blood donations. Currently, if a man has had sex with another man in the last three months, he cannot donate blood. More than 20 U.S. lawmakers, including Oregon’s U.S. Senators Ron Wyden and Jeff Merkley, say it’s time to scrap that policy.”

CAP is excited to announce the start of a brand new program in SW Washington in partnership with the Rainbow Advocacy and Inclusion Network (RAINS). With support from the Gamma Mu Foundation, CAP and RAINS will work together to provide peer-based social support for LGBTQ+ folks in and around Longview, WA.

The past year living with COVID has created some incredible logistical and service challenges for nearly everyone, and we at CAP are no exception. With many of our services being client-facing, we have worked to navigate the complexities of continuing to provide these critical services in a way that is safe for both us and our clients.

CAP and Our House have been working in partnership for over 30 years. Together, our two organizations have been exploring how an integration of our programs, services, and administrative operations might maximize our collective capacity to serve people living with, and affected by, HIV in every stage of life, throughout Oregon and SW Washington.

On May 25, 2020 Minneapolis police officers arrested George Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, after a convenience store employee called 911 and told the police that Mr. Floyd had bought cigarettes with a counterfeit $20 bill. Seventeen minutes after the first squad car arrived at the scene, Mr. Floyd was unconscious and pinned beneath three police officers, showing no signs of life. This was not a new moment or scenario in our nation’s history. Countless Black and Brown bodies have been inappropriately profiled, wrongly accused and lost to police brutality before and after this moment. However, it was those 8 minutes and 46 seconds that sparked a racial awakening and literally took the breath from our nation.

In our last letter, we shared our commitment to providing you with updates on how our system is adapting in the pandemic, and taking the necessary steps to ensure that you have access to the services you need, while staying safe and healthy. You are always in the forefront of our minds, but in these past few weeks, amid community uprisings it becomes even clearer how important it is for us to stay connected.

The Oregon Health Authority is working on a collaborative project with Portland State University and Cascade AIDS Project called Chime In. The project recruits community members at different venues – bars, clubs, sporting events, social and community events in the Portland and Vancouver area, to take a men’s health survey and HIV test.

On July 5, 2016, Cascade AIDS Project (CAP) and the National College of Natural Medicine (NCNM) will launch primary care services at CAP’s LGBTQ wellness center, Pivot, located at 209 SW 4th Ave, Portland OR, 97204. This is made possible through a collaborative agreement between the two organizations who share a commitment to the health and well-being of Portland’s LGBTQ Community.