Volunteers Focus Efforts on Hospice : Ventura: After four years, workers are close to completing Christopher House, the county’s first low-income AIDS facility.

They have given a table here, a chair there, and lots of time and sweat--volunteers and donors offering a hand to complete Ventura County’s first home for low-income people dying of AIDS.

On Monday, it was a crew from Home Depot on their day off, stripping the inside of one of the two cottages that stands in back of Christopher House, the renovated Victorian scheduled to open May 1 near downtown Ventura. After replacing some fixtures and drywall, the volunteers prepared the yellow-stained walls for painting.

It has been a struggle that has taken four years, organizers say, one that would have been impossible without hundreds of volunteers.

“They’ve kept us going and will keep us going,” said Tim Rawle, manager of the property. “We’ve had people dropping off so much furniture that we’ve been able to distribute it outside the home, even furnishing one family’s apartment.”

Christopher House was the dream of Christopher Dye, the Ventura County resident who helped establish the first AIDS clinic in the county and served for two years as president of AIDS Care, a nonprofit organization serving local AIDS patients. Dye envisioned an AIDS hospice modeled after one in Santa Barbara.

In 1990 he succumbed to the disease before he could start the project. Family members and local organizers took up Dye’s idea, forming the nonprofit Christopher House Foundation. After receiving a loan from American Commercial Bank and a federal grant of $260,000, they purchased the property on East Thompson Boulevard.

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Rawle said the need for the home is evidenced by the dozens of people already on the waiting list. One of the future tenants has lived in a camper van for the last three years, he said. Other future tenants include a family struggling to pay their rent. The husband has AIDS, and his wife and young daughter have both tested positive for the virus that causes Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. They will be among the 12 people who will stay in the house and two cottages.

Too sick to continue working and unable to find affordable housing, many of those on the waiting list will probably spend their last days in cheap motel rooms provided by the county, or in an expensive hospital bed, Rawle said.

He said the $73-per-day cost per patient at Christopher House versus the $1,200 daily cost of hospital treatment is reason alone to support the new facility.

“With that kind of savings it’s hard to see why it isn’t encouraged more,” he said. Martina Rippey, a Ventura County public health nurse who works with AIDS patients, said the hospice is urgently needed.

“There should be no reason for people to die alone,” she said. “We know with Christopher House they’re going to live in a supportive, caring environment.”

Since a ceremonial groundbreaking a year ago, Rawle said the Christopher House Foundation has been struggling to raise the $225,000 needed for renovations and the additional $218,000 it will take annually to run the 24-hour care facility.

“That pressure is not going to go away,” Rawle said, adding that the organization hopes to obtain a long-term commitment of corporate sponsorship.

But the organization has succeeded in raising more than $100,000 with everything from garage sales, private donations and a few grants, Rawle said. Then there are the legions of volunteers.

“I think many have lost friends, and this is part of the grieving process,” said Kathy Powell, volunteer coordinator for Christopher House.

Powell saw her best friend die of AIDS last year.

“You get more than you can ever give caring for someone with AIDS,” she said. “There is such serenity in the end.”

More than 100 people have contacted Powell in recent months, offering to do the cooking, cleaning and landscaping at Christopher House. While she said the hospice experience can be positive for volunteers, it can also take an emotional toll.

“We’ll do extensive interviews just to make sure people know what they’re getting into,” she said. “One woman told me she wanted to start outside the house working in the garden and slowly move to chores inside. She wasn’t sure if she would be ready to see people she cared for die.”

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Fitting insulation along the wall in one of the cottages on Monday, Mike Ulrich, a salesman for Home Depot in Thousand Oaks, said he did not mind spending his day off working.

“I don’t have anything better to do,” he said. And although he doesn’t know anybody with AIDS or HIV, he said the small porch he was working on, with its windows and abundant sunlight, would make a perfect playroom for children.

Cecilia Rockey, the Home Depot official who coordinated the volunteers, said the idea of helping children prompted the effort.

“This is the only licensed AIDS care facility in the county,” Rockey said. “When we read that in the paper, we couldn’t pass up a chance to get involved.”

FYI

Christopher House is still in need of concrete or asphalt to pave its driveway, and non-perishable food to provide meals for patients. Prospective donors or volunteers may call Christopher House at 653-0468.