1st AIDS Hospice in Valley Planned for Unidentified Area in Van Nuys

A nonprofit organization that operates a controversial hospice for AIDS patients in West Hollywood announced Wednesday that it plans to open a similar facility in the San Fernando Valley on Oct. 1 for AIDS patients who are close to death.

However, officials of Hospice Los Angeles-Long Beach declined to reveal the location of the hospice, which would be the first such facility in the Valley. They said the facility--to be called Pioneer Home--would be in a semi-residential neighborhood, zoned for apartments, north of Sherman Way in Van Nuys.

City and county officials named as chairmen for a fund-raiser for the hospice--including Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs and a spokesman for Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich--said they do not know where the home will be.

“It doesn’t make a difference where it is,” Wachs said. “The need is tremendous for places like this.”

John Marceli, president of the group’s board, said he withheld the address to protect the confidentiality of the patients and to prevent hysteria in the neighborhood.

Six Patients Expected

“I don’t want this place to be defaced by vandals prior to the opening,” Marceli said.

He said the home is next to an apartment building and to a single-family residence about to be vacated. He said he had spoken with a few residents near the hospice site and has found no resistance so far. He described the area as a “transient neighborhood with a lot of apartment dwellers moving in and out, so I don’t think there will be much opposition.”

Pioneer Home will house six patients “who have abandoned curative aspects of their illness, and have come here to die,” Marceli said.

The patients will have six months or less to live and the hospice will allow them to spend their last days in a “family environment instead of in a hospital,” Marceli said. “Our task is to make them comfortable and give them pain management.”

Full-time staff members will care for the patients. The operation is funded by Los Angeles County, private donations and medical insurance.

The organization also operates the Hughes Home in West Hollywood, an AIDS hospice in a single-family neighborhood. Several dozen neighbors had appealed to city officials to shut that hospice down, describing it as a medical facility that did not belong in a single-family neighborhood.

Appeal Rejected

The Los Angeles Board of Zoning Appeals turned away their protests Tuesday, allowing the hospice to continue operating. Since it opened, 22 people have died there.

Officials of the hospice organization said they are establishing a facility in the Valley because the area has the third largest number of AIDS cases in Southern California.

Van Nuys homeowners who were asked to comment on the hospice reacted positively.

“It doesn’t sound like anything that would warrant alarm,” David Read said. “The government certainly hasn’t done enough for this problem. Even if they wanted to do something like this next door to me, it would be fine.”

Another homeowner, Joyce Blaine, said she thought the hospice was a “marvelous idea. We have to do something for these people.”