A lighthouse in AIDS crisis still lighting way for LGBTQ community

When HIV/AIDS swept through Houston in the 1980s, some people ran from any contact with those who were ill, even if it meant abandoning friends and family.

Social worker Victoria Williams ran, too. But she ran toward the inferno, not away.

She listened to the patients, mostly gay, white men growing weaker and more isolated by the day.

"What three things are most important to you?" she would ask. "What can I start working on tonight?"

Even she was surprised by the answers. Those struggling with HIV or AIDS didn't have money for food or rent. Still, they worried most about their constant companions, their pets.

"I can help," she said.

Early on Williams cared for the dogs, cats and other critters by herself. But as the number of animals in her care grew, friends stepped in to help.

That was the start of the Pet Patrol, which offered subsidized veterinary care, food and help keeping clients and pets together at home as long as possible. Over the years, the group has evolved, as has Williams, who has served Houston in general and the LGBTQ community, in particular, for more than 30 years.

Another nonprofit that she helped start is Assisthers, which helps lesbians challenged by illness or disability stay in their homes.

Until 1996 - and the development of lifesaving HIV/AIDS drugs - Williams had focused on the terminally ill gay men in the LGBTQ community.

"It was time to help women," she said.

In 2015, she also helped launch The Oral History Project, which is documenting the stories of people affected by HIV/AIDS across Southeast Texas. HIV is a virus spread through certain bodily fluids; AIDS is a series of infections or cancers preying on a weakened immune system.

"It was such a hard time and so painful to remember," Williams said. "But there are lessons to be learned."

Williams had a master's degree in social work from the University of Wisconsin and a passion to serve when she arrived in Houston in 1982.

That same week, the Ku Klux Klan marched on City Hall.

"I wondered what I had done," Williams said. "I'm gay, and I had moved into an outwardly hostile environment to both blacks and gays. I thought, 'Emotionally and physically unpack. Give it two years.' "

Williams did leave in 1984, but only to help her mother in Connecticut after her father died. On Williams' return to Houston in 1986, she found many of her gay male friends were dead or dying from AIDS.

"Like many lesbian women, I started making meals and driving friends to the hospital. Then I thought to myself, 'Tori, you're a social worker, you're trained to be a community organizer, and this community could use some organizing."

Williams' gift, says Andrew Edmonson, a board member for The Oral History Project, is identifying social problems, then orchestrating the solutions. Edmonson said the requests Williams received in the late '80s and early '90s also included, " 'Sit with me while I die because my family rejected me' or, 'Walk my dog, the creature who loves me best in the world.' " 

Rich Arenschieldt, a longtime Pet Patrol volunteer, described Williams' strengths as "super powers."

"She has the innate ability to be empathic and determine what a person really needs. She's the one who will take a step back and ask herself, 'How do I get those needs met?' "

Over the years, Williams has raised more than $2 million to fight HIV/AIDS. The Pet Patrol and Assisthers are still going strong, and The Oral History Project is scheduled to be completed in 2019. When finished, the personal experiences of 100 long-term survivors, physicians, activists, religious and political leaders - all describing their view of Houston's HIV/AIDS epidemic - will have a home in the Woodson Research Center at Rice University.

It's 9 p.m. on a Tuesday, and Williams, 63, has not changed out of her work clothes or had dinner. Instead, she's chatting with visiting neighbors who were flooded during Hurricane Harvey and juggling two kittens, Harvey orphans, mewling to be fed.

She retrieves bottles filled with formula. Soon the neighbors are feeding and bonding with the kittens, too.

Though HIV/AIDS is no longer a daily part of the national conversation, it is still front and center for her. For almost 19 years, she's served as director of the staff for the Houston Ryan White Planning Council, which means she shares responsibility for the state and and federal funds used to plan, organize and deliver local HIV services.

"I won't say it's a thankless task," said Harris County Judge Ed Emmett, "but Tori coordinates a group of people who are already fragile and need help. She's seen a lot of pain, yet she manages to see a lot of hope behind that pain."