After 42 years of operation, Canada’s oldest HIV service organization has announced that it will shutter its doors in the next six months.

The AIDS Committee of Toronto (ACT) was founded in 1983 and helped countless patients during the height of the AIDS epidemic, but now its executive director, Ryan Lisk, says the organization has made the “bittersweet” decision to wind down operations by March 31, 2026.

“ACT began with the hope that at some point in the future it wouldn’t be needed anymore, which is why it’s bittersweet,” Lisk explains. “For more than four decades, we have been honoured to stand alongside thousands of people living with and affected by HIV, providing support, education, advocacy and care.”

Lisk cites years of financial challenges as one reason behind the decision, as well as significant changes to the HIV landscape, which he says has led to a decline in the overall demand for ACT’s services.

“This decision was not made lightly, but it is the best course forward to ensure that our staff are supported, and our service users continue to receive the resources they need through other organizations,” he says.

When ACT was founded by a small group of activists—one summer more than 40 years ago—AIDS was an unknown illness considered to be a rare cancer that was rapidly killing thousands of gay men. The limited information available prompted mass hysteria and fear, and politicians, who were ignorant about the disease, remained largely silent.

During those initial years, the work of groups like ACT and many others became a pivotal response to the emerging public health crisis, and it later grew to become one of Canada’s largest HIV service organizations. Meanwhile, in the U.S., groups like Gay Men’s Health Crisis were pushing the queer community to get angry at the government for a lack of support.

“Our time of greatest innovation and impact was the ’80s, ’90s and early 2000s when we had more donor dollars and more flexibility in our funding,” Lisk says. “With that donor support, we were able to innovate programming and create a thing that’s responsive to the needs of the community in real time.”

The organization previously offered HIV and sexual health education, preventative programs and community outreach. They also held annual fundraisers, including its Walk for AIDS event, which ended in 2021 due to a lack of funds after more than 30 years.

With the height of the epidemic in the rear-view mirror, Lisk says the organization has faced a steady decline in donations as well as in government support.

“We’ve relied heavily on government support and government funding gives what they can, but there’s a competitive element to that,” Lisk explains. “There are many HIV organizations and services across the province competing for a fixed amount of money.”

Lisk says ACT faced nearly seven years of repeated deficits that made future operations untenable when combined with high administrative costs. The organization also rents office space near the Church-Wellesley Village with a hefty lease priced at nearly $650,000 each year.

Funding isn’t the only thing that has changed over the last four decades. Since the early ’80s, researchers have made massive advancements in the way HIV is prevented and treated.

“I think that undetectable viral load and access to testing, uptake around PrEP, has changed a lot of the conversation around HIV in 2025,” Lisk explains. “And so, there was a question about how we remain relevant and innovative?”

Throughout the ’90s, the disease progressed from an unknown terminal illness to a treatable condition that can be managed with anti-retroviral therapy. This allows people living with HIV to maintain an undetectable viral load that cannot sexually transmit the virus. This scientifically-proved concept is also known as “Undetectable = Untransmittable,” or “U=U.”

@xtramagazine Did you know that in Canada, you can still be arrested for not disclosing that you have HIV? Despite advocates calling for legal reform for years around HIV-nondisclosure, the federal government refuses to change anything. In a new feature at Xtra, writer Arvin Joaquin breaks down why nothing is changing, and spoke to some of the people at the from of the fight for decriminalizatiom. You can read the full story at the link in our bio 🔗 #hiv #canada #canadanews #lgbtq #lgbtqnews #hivaids #hivawareness ♬ original sound – Xtra Magazine

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“As prevention and treatment options become more effective, [AIDS service organizations] are focused on supporting equitable and timely access,” explains Lydia Makoroka, the senior director of programs at the Ontario HIV Treatment Network. “They are working on dismantling HIV stigma and reaching the subset of people who are unknowingly living with HIV to get them into testing and care.

“A major priority is educating communities that HIV is still very much a threat and getting folks connected to various prevention and treatment pathways,” she adds.

That statement was echoed by Kate Salters, a senior research scientist at the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, who says she is consistently hearing from AIDS groups who are having to deal with “intersecting public health crises.”

“This includes STIs, COVID-19, the ongoing unregulated drug toxicity crisis and intersecting structural violence facing people living with HIV,” Salters says. “We know HIV community services are critical: our research shows that people with strong social supports are much more likely to stay engaged in HIV treatment.

“For many, that support comes directly from community organizations,” she adds. “While some groups have faced closures due to funding and capacity pressures, the demand for these services is greater than ever, and sustaining them is important.”

The changing health landscape has posed a troubling future for some HIV service organizations, leading public health experts to wonder if this is the beginning of the end for some groups.

Traditionally, the primary focus of these organizations was to help treat people living with HIV. Given the evolving health needs of the community, some organizations have pivoted their service model to address structural issues impacting HIV transmission, such as substance abuse, mental health and housing.

Chris Aucoin, the executive director of the Health Equity Alliance of Nova Scotia (HEAL NS) says his organization initiated a strategic planning process in 2017 to make necessary changes to their service model.

“There was a concern that if we didn’t shift our mandate that we wouldn’t be sustainable in the long term,” Aucoin says. “The writing was on the wall that if we stayed on that trajectory, then within three to five years, we’d probably be closing our doors too.”

In the years that followed, the HEAL NS made swift changes to remain viable, including changing its name to remove the word AIDS and expanding its mission to address broader queer health issues, including mental health and substance use.

“We saw a window of opportunity to expand, to address filling in some of those areas where work was not happening,” he adds.

Aucoin says the changes worked to their advantage. The new name has made fundraising easier, with events selling out and attracting more community support. But the future is grim for organizations like ACT, who haven’t been as prosperous when it comes to pivoting their service model.

“It’s a hard place to be in to have to acknowledge that we’re going to close,” Lisk said while pointing to the 25 staff members who will be out of a job as well as the people who relied on their services.

“The community as a whole has come to know ACT, whether they were directly connected to us or just picked up our condom and loot packs in the Village on a Saturday night.

“They felt ACT’s presence in the community for 42 years,” he says.

Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to table his government’s first budget in November 2025, and HIV advocates like Chris Aucoin are worried there could be more cuts to HIV funding.

“I’m nervous with the current federal budget, because the new prime minister has already indicated that there are going to be funding cuts to the Women and Gender Equality department in Ottawa,” Aucoin says. “We might end up seeing our size diminished for a while if our main funding resources are scaled back.”