Among the dozens of nonprofit organizations that...

Among the dozens of nonprofit organizations that have sprung up in Los Angeles in recent years to contend with the ravages of AIDS, only one devotes its full resources to providing direct cash assistance to patients with the disease.

Since 1984, Aid for AIDS, a small band of volunteers and paid counselors, has operated out of an office in West Hollywood, raising and dispensing more than $700,000 to help those with the disease pay for housing, food and medicine that would otherwise quickly deplete their financial resources.

Now, Aid for AIDS is facing a financial drain of its own.

Officials of the group say that since January, its monthly caseload of new patients has risen by at least 50%. Last year, the agency was able to satisfy an average of 25 new applications for assistance each month. But because of what Aid for AIDS officials say is the relentless rise in the number of requests for help from impoverished patients, the group is now faced with as many as 40 new cases a month.

“There is an unpleasant possibility that somewhere down the line, we may have to turn qualified applicants away,” said Gavin Cort-Brackett, the new executive director of Aid for AIDS. “I’d hope we’ll be able to raise enough funds to make sure that doesn’t happen. But the increase is just the tip of the iceberg. The predictions we’re hearing are frightening.”

As funds dwindled in February, Cort-Brackett had to cut the usual $500 stipend the group grants to many of its 1,000 clients--down to only $100. “We really had to scrimp,” he said. “It pained us to do it, but the only other way was to cut patients loose, and we’re very reluctant to even consider that.”

Added to those pressures, Cort-Brackett said, is the tendency of other nonprofit AIDS-related groups to refer some cases to Aid for AIDS.

In one case, an AIDS-ridden, homeless former civil engineer from Texas sought $20 from AIDS Project Los Angeles to pay for a California identification card to help him start fresh here. The AIDS Project, which does not concentrate its efforts on direct grants, denied the request. The man turned to Aid for AIDS for help.

Cort-Brackett said such cases result from an AIDS support system that is too fragmented. “APLA does wonderful work,” he said, “but we seem to have lost flexibility in dealing with human beings.”

A spokesman for the AIDS Project, Andy Weiser, said the group’s officials are aware of such cases, but “if we met every request, or resources would be depleted in days. We encourage clients to approach as many agencies as possible.”

Like the AIDS Project, Aid for AIDS’ ability to keep patients financially afloat is directly tied to what is in its bank accounts on any given day. Some gay bars keep jars on their counters for small contributions. Larger donations have come from yearly fund-raising parties, such as one last year that featured actors Burt Lancaster, Marsha Mason, Leigh Taylor-Young and Ed Begley Jr.

Cort-Brackett said he hopes the money shortage will be partially eased by the group’s request for more aid from the city of West Hollywood, which last year gave Aid for AIDS $78,700 for administrative costs. This year, Cort-Brackett said, the group will ask for $142,000. Lloyd Long, the city’s director of human services, said a decision will be made on the request by early May.