May 17, 2006

A Jar Half Full: Free Condoms Come to Harlem

Brenda Turner and Deborah Boston never arrive empty-handed at the Harlem hair and nail salons, community events and hardware stores they visit each week. They pack jars full of condoms that are free for the taking, and the jars empty out fast. “I have to replenish the hardware store supplies all the time,” says Boston.

Until this year, there were no such jars—and no free condoms. “We kept saying, ‘Why make people pay for condoms when the epidemic is so strong?’ ” recalls Ken De Jesus of Iris House, the 13-year-old Harlem AIDS services organization where Turner and Boston work as peer counselors and outreach workers.

There’s no easy explanation for the delay. Condoms have technically been available at no charge from the New York City Department of Health (DOH) since 1988. But without much publicity, the program was practically a secret—not even Iris House knew about it.

Also, say city workers, the department’s 2002 change in leadership kick-started new prevention strategies that simply took a while to implement. “Before [Commissioner Thomas] Frieden,” says Tamar Renaud, DOH director of HIV medical affairs, “there wasn’t a commitment to pay millions of dollars for condoms.”

DOH press releases on HIV started mentioning the free condoms last June—around the same time the program acquired a Web address and started offering not just male condoms but also female condoms (a rare freebie, with costs about 25 times higher) and lubricants. So far, 14.4 million free condoms have been ordered online, according to Renaud.

Iris House alone has given out 36,000 male condoms, 3,000 female condoms and 10,000 packets of lubricant under the program and meanwhile experienced a surge in demand for basic HIV education. Boston, now known around Harlem as Condom Lady, says she answers “all kinds of questions” and even offers to accompany people to get tested.

Not having to pay for condoms is more of an issue in some neighborhoods—and some age groups—than others. The only Iris House condoms that get snapped up faster than the ones at Harlem hardware stores are the ones in the office of a small student organization at City College. “These are students," explains De Jesus. "They don’t have the money for condoms."