John Kirby
Director of Street Medicine
John Kirby began his working life right out of high school as an Infantry Soldier in the United States Army, serving honorably from 1982 – 1991. He says he “was competing with an idea of manhood that he couldn’t put a face on.” He was discharged from both the Army and the closet in December 1991 and moved to Long Beach, California to a large LGBTQ community where he struggled with alcoholism and methamphetamine abuse leading him into homelessness on Christmas Eve of 1994.
Amidst the chaos of the life of a homeless addict he contracted HIV, which ultimately saved his life. It was the grant funding available to those living with HIV that paid for all the social, behavioral, and medical services he needed to turn his life around; he has been clean and sober since May 17, 1995.
John began his social service career as a volunteer HIV Testing Counselor shortly after discharging from residential substance abuse treatment in 1995. His personal and professional life have seen him working at the crux of substance abuse, mental illness, HIV/AIDS, homelessness, medical care for the indigent, and LGBT social justice.
He has served as a substance abuse intake counselor, a research assistant on projects related to HIV prevention among active substance users and sex workers, a team member developing a pilot project addressing secondary HIV prevention with active substance users, director of programs for a small LGBT center in Los Angeles County, a methadone clinic administrator, and an outpatient substance abuse clinic manager before moving into executive level program and fund development.
Most recently he directed behavioral health and social service programs addressing the social determinants of health across one of the largest FQHC systems in Southern California.
John’s work over the past three decades has been primarily in program and fund development, specifically in the behavioral health field – as a Director of Development for two organizations, and as a private consultant for several organizations since 2009.
When he began his work in the field of HIV/AIDS in the mid-90s, John became aware of the urgent need to effectively integrate medical and behavioral health in the effort to reduce the spread of HIV, and to keep his clients alive until medical research caught up to the reality of the disease.
He is a strong believer in not reinventing the wheel, and therefore designs new programs and intervention approaches within a collaborative, integrated framework often capitalizing on the strengths of community partners in seeking the most expedient approach to serving the needs of the community.
His approach has culminated in over $170 million in total grant funding serving the needs of the most marginalized populations in Southern California.
John lives with his husband Ted, and their pitbull, Gemma, in Cathedral City, California. And yes - Gemma is named after the biker mom in "Sons of Anarchy."