Regular readers will remember Floyd Visser as an entirely deserving Mr. GayCalgary for November 2013. Executive director for Calgary’s Society Housing AIDS/HIV Restricted Persons (SHARP) Foundation, Visser has spent nearly a decade working in the interests of HIV-positive people in the Calgary community. GayCalgary had a chance to sit down with him recently, to ask him in more detail about his work, and how it fits into – or to all appearances, dominates – his life.

When Visser was brought on board in the winter of 2004, SHARP was undergoing a major transition. "Much the same as it was back in the early 1990s, [SHARP was] almost considered a hospice. Essentially for people dying of AIDS. And of course, with ARV [therapy] people are now living with AIDS, so we had to look at things quite differently in terms of how to help engage the people that we serve in their own health and wellness, and helping them to live better lives."

On Visser’s watch, SHARP’s story has largely been one of success. The Foundation’s approach to the issues challenging its clients has been a thoroughly modern and progressive one, employing compassion, realism, and harm-reduction – a model for providing aid to at-risk individuals that has been successful the world over, particularly in comparison to the draconian attempts at prohibition and behavioural correction that were so prevalent in previous decades. "Do they stop using drugs?" asks Visser, rhetorically. "Probably not. Do they use less? Yes."

In other areas, success is less ambiguous. "Do they stay medication-compliant? One-hundred percent. ... We’ve had incredible success – like 95% or 98% success – in terms of clients getting to doctor’s appointments. The other really cool thing right across the board for the SHARP foundation is, ever since we introduced a nurse three years ago, we’ve been monitoring the number of interventions with EMS, or the number of times taking people to emergency, and that has gone down significantly."

Even at the beginning of Visser’s time with SHARP, the world looked very different from the perspective of an individual with an HIV-positive diagnosis than it did ten years previous. Medication and care allow people to live, if not ‘normal’ lives, then at least lives worth living. Visser’s role, as he sees it, is to make this a reality for as many people as SHARP is able. "Yes, you can live successfully on the meds, if you’re good at routine, and if you’re good at lowering your stress levels, and if you know how to cook a good meal for yourself or have someone else do it for you. If you have all those things in place. But not everyone has those abilities, and that’s where we come in."

Compassion and holistic well-being are crucial to SHARP’s mission. "You’ve got to have quality housing," Visser maintains. "And it doesn’t have to be high-end, but at least provide an opportunity for someone to create a home for themselves ... better housing, better health outcomes. We’ve seen the clients take more pride, they engage better. [You can’t] just be put into a room somewhere, and hear ‘Oh, we got you housed, so now you’ve got to get better.’"

Even when discussing his personal life, Visser’s mind immediately traces back toward his work, and the ways in which it permeates and, to hear him tell it, enriches his life. "Engaging with friends is super important – that’s the nice thing about my job: I’ve built such an amazing network of friends – and I would say friends – they’re not just supporters of the Foundation."  Lest the rest of us mortals begin to feel inadequate, it should be noted that Visser isn’t working during every waking moment. "Certainly things like ballet, and theatre, and exercise. When the weather is good – somewhat of a fair-weather athlete, I suppose. I still like to dabble in design."

And, naturally, the relentlessly positive Visser has only glowing things to say about his partner, Tim, though he’s at a loss to define exactly how long they’ve been ‘together.’ "It’s a process, right? We know the exact date that we met, and that’s how we look at it, in terms of the 17 years. We met for coffee and we started chatting, and it was like we’d known each other our entire lives. You don’t often have that kind of connection with people. So, again... lucky, right?"

Visser lives, in his own words, a blessed life, which seems only to have drawn his attention and care toward those who have been less so. Under his tenure, SHARP has advanced a compassionate and even intersectional agenda "HIV does not stand alone. It’s interconnected and integrated with so many other issues, including housing and sexual orientation or gender identity or poverty. Particularly with the LGBT community, there are so many that deal with so many of those issues." The fight against HIV may be far from over, but the future seems a bit brighter for those with SHARP in their corner.