Sylvester
Cascade AIDS Project is located in the Lincoln Building in downtown Portland.
In 2015, Cascade AIDS Project (CAP) of Portland, Oregon, will mark a milestone: It turns 30. So this World AIDS Day, December 1, it’ll kick off a yearlong calendar of festivities honoring its three decades. There’s much to celebrate.

For starters, in July CAP named its new executive director, Tyler TerMeer, who arrives fresh from overseeing the “strategic partnerships” merger of two AIDS service organizations in Ohio. Not that mergers will be among his future duties. “CAP is incredibly solid,” TerMeer says, adding that he’s focused on growing the capacity of the organization as well as its funding and community partnerships. Plus, he’s looking for new ways to “maintain relevance in the shifting health care landscape,” a.k.a. Obamacare.

One of CAP’s biggest successes is its Testing4All program, which offers low-stress, stigma-free, drop-in testing and counseling to everyone. To get federal funding for HIV testing, programs usually must target high-risk populations, such as gay men. But this overlooks straight people, particularly men who have sex with men but don’t identify as gay. CAP’s solution? With funding from the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, it launched Testing4All, where anyone can get an HIV test regardless of their ability to pay or willingness to talk about their sexual lives or drug use. According to recent data, the program’s seropositivity rate was 1.74 percent, compared with the state’s average of 0.013 percent.

Another CAP winner is the Working Choices employment and job training program, which takes into consideration the unique needs of people with HIV. TerMeer explains the program’s importance: “We know stable employment is a proven route to stable housing, and that in turn is known to increase health outcomes and adherence of clients to medical appointments and treatment.”