Housing for People Living With HIV/AIDS

A Mix of Affordable Rental Housing &
Permanent Supportive Housing for
Low-income Families and Special Needs Single Adults

Forty-four plus years ago, it began as a ripple, one that would soon become a tidal wave. On June 5, 1981, an odd but troubling reference appeared in a journal published by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), describing a rare form of pneumonia afflicting five gay men. By year’s end, their ailment would be known worldwide as Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome – or AIDS.

For many people who lived in the 80s with the disease, AIDS was almost always a death sentence. We watched as many of our friends and neighbors, lovers and partners, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, and our children die painful and horrible deaths. As we approach 45 years since the first diagnosis, the disease is different. Today in the U.S., more than 1.1 million people are living with HIV and/or AIDS – and more than 500,000 are African Americans, far surpassing any other racial or ethnic group.

While AIDS remains a formidable foe and is the number one killer of people of color (84.5% of NYC’s new HIV cases are among African-Americans, Latinos and Asian/Pacific Islanders) in the United States, advances in drug therapies have turned AIDS into a chronic, manageable disease although one without a cure and one where an early death remains a real prospect. 

Today, people look forward to living longer rather than counting down the days to the end of their lives. This is what our PLWA housing program is all about — a place of hope, a place to live with dignity.

For more than 25 years, AAPCI has provided emergency and transitional housing. We have also housed individuals and families who are chronically homeless, living with a serious mental illness, substance use disorder, or a combination of these challenges, and people living with HIV/AIDS and their families. Our goal is to prepare them to live independently by providing access to transitional housing and supportive services to ensure that they access and maintain connections to primary medical care in preparation for permanent housing. While our housing models include scattered-site units throughout the community, our preferred housing model is a congregate housing setting.

AAPCI has a strong relationship with New York City’s HIV/AIDS Services Administration (“HASA”) and its three Brooklyn-based centers, and has a deep understanding of HASA’s benefits and housing placement process.

Through HASA support, rent and utility costs are covered. We supply 24/7 security and building management for congregate facilities and provide specialized supportive services to HIV+ housing clients.

For further information on these programs, please call 718-462-8654.