AIDS Project Moves to New Headquarters

A Santa Monica nonprofit agency that offers social services to AIDS patients is celebrating its move to larger, more comfortable quarters.

With the Santa Monica AIDS Project’s move last week to a 2,300-square-foot office, clients can be interviewed in private rooms and conduct evening supports groups in a lounge.

Hywel Sims, executive director of the 4-year-old agency, said new medicines are allowing some clients to live longer, healthier lives. Now, many patients find themselves looking forward to life rather than contemplating death. The lounge will provide a place for the clients to discuss those issues, Sims said.

“Some of our clients are moving off disability and back into the work force,” Sims said. “A support group will help them adjust to these changes.”

The agency, funded by private donations and local and federal grants, also houses the Mountains AIDS Foundation, a group that offers weeklong retreats in the mountains near Santa Barbara.

The AIDS project serves 85 clients, some of them established people with medical insurance and others who are homeless, Sims said.

“Our clientele is growing and changing,” Sims said. “About half the people we serve are not only living with HIV but they might also be homeless, or be substance abusers and homeless.”

Since its inception, the agency has run a peer education program in which teenage volunteers are trained to speak about AIDS. Last year, the program trained 75 teenagers who spoke to 4,000 others. This year, the program is being expanded to include Malibu High School.