Gays Planning to Convert Hotel Into Hospice for AIDS Patients

Gay activists announced plans Monday to convert a Hollywood residential hotel into a hospice-like care facility that could open by November and eventually house as many as 40 AIDS patients.

Officials of the Greater Los Angeles AIDS Hospice Foundation, the group backing the facility, said they already have raised half the $300,000 needed for a down payment on the $600,000 hotel and for other start-up costs.

“We don’t expect to have any problems raising the rest of the money from the gay community and others interested in helping the victims of AIDS,” said Ivy Bottini, a lesbian activist who is one of the founders of the hospice foundation.

The facility proposed for conversion is the Vista Apartments, located in the 1600 block of Vista del Mar Avenue.

Bob Craig, the president of Christopher Street West, a gay community group that contributed $100,000 to the project, said the 40-bed facility would be the largest of its kind in the United States. A similar facility opened in San Francisco earlier this year and provides intensive last-stage care for 15 dying AIDS patients at a time.

Craig and other backers of the hospice foundation said the facility would first open as a residential hotel, with the ultimate aim of becoming a state-licensed board-and-care facility.