Home for Those With HIV, AIDS to Reopen

Filling a need left unanswered since Christopher House closed last spring, the Serra Project will reopen the facility in April to provide housing for people with HIV or AIDS in Ventura County.

The Los-Angeles based Serra Project, which operates three homes for people living with HIV or AIDS in Los Angeles County, recently purchased Christopher House--the only such home in Ventura County. They will reopen it under the new name Christopher’s Place.

Although Ventura County Public Health Services and AIDS Care, a private, nonprofit social services agency, provided short-term rental assistance, the closing of Christopher House left no housing options in Ventura County for people with HIV or AIDS who are homeless or in need of supportive services.

“This is the only AIDS-specific housing project in the county,” said Doug Green, executive director for AIDS Care. “It is greatly needed. Every needs assessment that we have ever done in the county has listed housing as a critical unmet need.”

When the Victorian house throws open its doors this spring, it will house adult men in the main building, and mothers and children in two guest houses. The project will provide 24-hour nursing care and weekly visits with nursing and social work professionals.

Serra Project managers say they hope Christopher’s Place will provide a local alternative for Ventura County residents who had to go to Los Angeles County for housing.

“We’re really excited,” said P.G. Ciotti, executive director for the Serra Project. “We feel we can bring services to Ventura [County] that they desperately need.”

Trisha Davis opened the Ventura home in 1993 in tribute to her brother Christopher Dye, who had died of AIDS. It was closed last May when the Department of Social Services found numerous problems with the facility, including not helping ill residents brush their teeth and take showers and not providing them with sufficient food. Faced with losing their license, the directors shut the hospice.