Grant Will Help Feed, House Victims of AIDS

The Aids Services Foundation of Orange County has been awarded $88,000 from the state Department of Health Services to provide housing and food for homeless people with AIDS, officials said Wednesday.

“The grant is coming at a time when housing is becoming more and more of an issue,” said Joel Miller, executive director of the foundation. State funding will help the foundation provide housing for “the more difficult homeless populations” such as intravenous drug users and homosexual men with AIDS, he said.

These groups, Miller said, have a harder time finding housing because they need special services.

The state grant also will be used to help house people who have early AIDS symptoms.

The Costa Mesa-based foundation, which currently provides shelter for six people with acquired immune deficiency syndrome, as well as support services for 249 AIDS sufferers in the county, will now be able to open another house to four more people suffering from the disease, Miller said. The locations of the houses are kept confidential for privacy and security, he said.

The shelters are intended to provide housing and help arrange intermittent home nursing and mental health care until residents find other housing or they need to be in a medical facility, he said.

The department obtained emergency legislation last year authorizing it to contract with up to 20 residential AIDS shelter pilot projects for a period of 18 months to address the problem.

As one of 17 sites in the state Department of Health Services program, the Orange County shelter also will be part of a study to help determine how many AIDs sufferers are homeless. Currently, there are no figures available for how many homeless AIDS sufferers there are in California, although state officials believe that the number is growing.

Peggy Falknor, a state Department of Health Services spokeswoman, said the yearlong study beginning April 1 will monitor the shelters’ performance, examine the housing needs of homeless AIDS sufferers and determine whether residential AIDS shelters provide a safe and satisfactory living environment.

Under current law, housing people who have AIDS does not require a state license unless services other than food and shelter--such as medical care--are provided.

All shelters in the new program will continue to be unlicensed but are required to have written agreements enabling them to refer residents to at least one nursing care facilitator, a general acute care hospital and one licensed home health care agency, Falknor said.

Jean Bremner, who keeps statistics for the AIDS Services Foundation of Orange County, said it costs the foundation about $2,300 a month to operate its six-room house. The food bank at the Costa Mesa shelter serves about 40 people each month for about $940, she said.