Phoenix Rising HIV/AIDS Re-entry Project History and Creation In 1996, new treatments rapidly shifted HIV/AIDS from a terminal to a chronic illness, leaving many people living with AIDS (PLWAs) to re-evaluate futures they had believed would be denied them and to face practical re-entry challenges around work, retraining, benefits, and finances. In January 1997, a group of PLWAs in Santa Fe began organizing around these issues, and at the Northern New Mexico People Living with AIDS Coalition — which Michael G. Smith had co-founded in 1995 and led as Executive Director — the work took shape as Nueve Vidas/Nine Lives: Strategies for Long-term Survivorship, twice-monthly forums that brought in outside experts to walk PLWAs through their options.

 

 Later that year, Michael compiled what had been learned into a formal resource. Informed by focus groups with PLWAs and case managers throughout New Mexico, the Phoenix Rising HIV/AIDS Re-entry Resource Guide was created — PLWA-driven from inception to completion and designed to foster independence and self-sufficiency. The guide became the cornerstone of a broader project that grew to include peer education, regional workshops and ASO in-services, resource coordination, presentations at local, statewide, national, and international conferences, and a website.