HIV-AIDS Groups to Get $30,000 in Grants

Kaiser Permanente has announced it will provide $200,000 in grants to 63 Southern California organizations that serve people with HIV or AIDS, including more than $30,000 to six such groups that serve the Valley.

The grants, ranging from $500 to more than $13,000 each, primarily will support groups that help minorities and HIV-positive children, according to Kaiser Permanente, a nonprofit health maintenance organization with 5 million California members.

Case management, public education and legal assistance are among ways that recipient organizations will use the grants. The funds also will help cover the feeding and transportation of seriously ill patients with AIDS--services often not covered by medical insurance, according to Kaiser Permanente.

Six Valley-focused organizations and one Ventura group will receive the grants at a July 21 luncheon at Kaiser Permanente’s Panorama City Medical Center.

Homestead Hospice and Shelter, which runs residences for people in Van Nuys and West Hills with HIV and AIDS, will receive $7,000.

“These kinds of grants are very important in order for us to keep providing housing,” said John Maceri , executive director of Homestead Hospice and Shelter.

The AIDS Service Center in Pasadena, which also runs a Glendale thrift store, will receive $11,875. The Serra Project, which runs residences for HIV and AIDS patients in North Hollywood, and the Valley Community Clinic in North Hollywood, each will receive $2,500, said Nicole Lorey, a Kaiser spokeswoman.

In addition, Hands United Together of Van Nuys will receive $3,500, and the Tarzana Mental Health/Valley Service Center will get $1,900.

AIDS Care Ventura will receive a $3,000 grant at the luncheon.