|
|
|
|||||||||||||
Georgia ASO Uses BC/EFA Grant to  AIDS Athens used a BC/EFA grant to buy $50 baskets of move-in essentials for homeless people entering its Shelter Plus Care housing program By Andy Smith The staff and volunteers of AIDS Athens, a small ASO in a Georgia college town, know housing the homeless means more than putting a roof over their heads. While federal funding has helped the organization find housing for more than 30 HIV-positive and homeless people in their area, guidelines restricted the ways in which AIDS Athens could spend the money. So, in September 2007, a seemingly small grant of $5000.00 from Broadway Cares came as a godsend, allowing the ASO to create a sort of “Welcome Wagon” for the formerly homeless. Initially, AIDS Athens spent $600.00 (about $50.00 each) on laundry baskets filled with toothbrushes, cleaners, laundry detergent, towels, hand towels, toilet paper, soap, shampoo and other essential personal care items, says Olivia Long, the organization’s executive director. The rest of the grant will be used to provide similar kits to new clients when they’re accepted into the housing program, which also provides free healthcare. Named Shelter Plus Care, the program is funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. “We were never able to use federal grant money for items like this,” she says, adding: “But they’re so important. If a homeless person is starting a job, or even going on an interview, they wouldn’t have money for a kit like this. “The clients coming into our housing program basically have nothing when they arrive.” Founded in 1987, AIDS Athens’s provides a food pantry, free testing, support groups, a buddy program, educational materials and other services to more than 300 clients spread out among 10 counties in northeast Georgia. “We’ve received federal funding for over 10 years to provide permanent housing for homeless people who are complying with their treatments,” Long says. “We usually have 30 to 36 people living in those housing units around town.” The ASO has five staff members, including two cases managers and a manager of residential services, who handles apartment maintenance for the housing program. Long says AIDS Athens see abut 5-6 new clients a month, a fair number of which come from larger cities. “The majority of our clients live in Athens, but some of these are people who are shifting out of metro areas like Atlanta,” she says. “They say that in a more rural area you receive more one-on-one attention. If you have a problem, it’s easier to get direct access to a person at a small ASO.” Last fall, AIDS Athens also benefited from an article on the baskets which ran in the local Athens Banner-Herald newspaper. “Around the holidays we got so many donations after that piece ran,” she says. “People gave food, clothing and furniture. It made a tremendous difference.”
|