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 What
is Housing Works?
Housing Works is a minority-controlled, community-based,
not-for-profit corporation providing housing, health care,
advocacy, job training, and vital supportive services
to homeless New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS. When
Housing Works was founded nearly a decade ago, there were
fewer than 350 units of supportive housing for the estimated
30,000 homeless people with AIDS and HIV who were living
in New York City. AIDS was fast becoming the primary cause
of homelessness in the United States. Thousands lived
on the streets or in dangerous, squalid, and disease-ridden
shelters, with no access to health care or social services.
A woeful lack of effective HIV prevention/education programs—as
well as an increasingly high incidence of intravenous
drug use and survival sex, both as a cause of and a response
to homelessness—led to tragically predictable and
dramatic increases in HIV-infection among the city's homeless.
Housing Works was founded in June 1990 as an outgrowth
of the Housing Committee of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash
Power (ACT UP), to address the burgeoning crises of homelessness
and AIDS, and to restore the fundamental human rights
of homeless people with AIDS and HIV through innovative
advocacy and direct service programs.
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Today,
Housing Works....
... is the nation's largest minority-controlled AIDS service
organization. Our mission is to reach the most vulnerable
and under served among those affected by the AIDS epidemic
in New York City—primarily homeless persons of color
whose positive HIV diagnoses are complicated by a history
of chronic mental illness and/or chemical dependence—and
provide them with a comprehensive range of services designed
to help them gain stability, independence, and dignity,
and improve their overall health. At the heart of our
mission is our commitment to advocating for the systemic
changes necessary in public attitudes, policies and laws
to ensure that AIDS and public health policies at all
levels of government are both sound in concept and equitable
in administration.
Over the past decade, we have:
Housed over 2,500 individuals and provided one-time or
ongoing services for an additional 5,000;
Attracted nationwide recognition for developing innovative,
client-centered models of housing and services for hard-to-reach
populations;
Been consistently regarded as the leading advocate in
New York State for the rights of our constituency;
Created New York State's first and most successful job
training and placement program for homeless people
with AIDS/HIV; and
Become pioneers in the nonprofit trend toward social
entrepreneurship
Housing Works is dedicated to developing and refining
a self-sustaining model of housing, serving, and advocating
for homeless people with AIDS and HIV—and remains
firmly devoted to ending the twin crises of homelessness
and AIDS.
For additional information, please click
here.
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