Street Inspiration

"Maybe someone can hear this and I can help somebody," says Kenneth Hazell, a 51-year-old ex-drug addict, ex-con, veteran, and outreach worker at New York City's CitiWide harm-reduction project in the South Bronx, an innovative community-based program. "And for a guy like me to say that-hey, come on," he jokes. Despite his immediately evident charm and charisma, Kenneth says that inside he's felt mean and dangerous for a long time. In fact, when he first found out he was HIV positive in 1990, he felt like he had just been given a death sentence. He started dealing drugs and ended up in jail. His attitude then, he says, was "F--k it."

It's been a long battle. Having survived the Vietnam War, the streets of New York, and the tough halls of Riker's Island prison, Kenneth has now "flipped the script." (see "Gimme Shelter"). He's living in a Single Room Occupancy hotel (SRO) and manages his drug use through a methadone maintenance program. His days are spent at CitiWide's busy office, going to support groups, attending peer-training meetings, and doing direct HIV outreach in New York's notoriously harsh SROs.

Changing his mentality, as he calls it, has had a big effect on changing his lifestyle, and vice versa. Today, he says: "I work something out where I see some type of goal: Something to reach, something to accomplish. [Previously] I was ready to murder. It doesn't have to be so final.

"I'm trumpeting CitiWide, but it's real," he adds. The positive experiences he's had there as a client help him keep it real as an outreach worker, one who approaches others with a familiarity and respect rarely afforded them. "They trust me. They know I'm dealing with it myself. They know where I'm coming from."

Though the SRO where he's living is far from being "home, sweet home," Kenneth is looking ahead. This place is "nothing as far as a future," he says, just "an emergency setup for someone to get his footing and then take it from there." But he plans to be a long-distance trucker (through a vocational training grant) and have a home on the road. Cultivating his stability through his daily work at CitiWide, he's finding his pace for moving forward, and walking his talk.

-Stanya Kahn