Jackson Free Press

Evicted from the shotgun house they were living in, Sharon and her three daughters had to hit the road earlier this year, living mainly out of a car until she was able to access funding through Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS/HIV, also called HOPWA.

Sharon, who asked to keep her last name anonymous, has been HIV-positive for 25 years. She had used HOPWA services before, but in the past two years, she thought the services had disappeared. In July, however, she went back to the clinic she used to receive help from, and they referred her to a nondescript office in the Jackson Medical Mall, where a team takes applications for housing services for people with HIV/AIDS for five counties.

Individuals with HIV/AIDS and their families qualify for funding through the program. Sharon said she was desperate, and now has time to get back on her feet again thanks to the program. HOPWA funding allowed her family to relocate to a larger house, helping them pay the deposit and the first month's rent while Sharon looks for a job. She had time to enroll her daughters in schools and help one of them find a job.

"This HOPWA agency was more than welcoming," Sharon said. "They helped us, and they did everything I needed."

Sharon, who will turn 49 years old next week, said the funding has given her life a new start, helping her transition back to the working world. Sharon said the HIV virus can be debilitating, sometimes hindering her from doing work that physically strains her. The HOPWA funding came at just the right time to give her time to find a job that will work for her and enable her to pay the rent and bills for her family's new home.

"I am thankful and grateful (for the HOPWA staff), and I owe it to them and other people in my situation to share my story," she said.

'They Get Treated Differently'

The Jackson-based HOPWA program, which reopened in mid-April, has a goal of helping 720 people. Its coordinators are hurrying because the contract is scheduled to dry up in September, and they need to reach enough people by then to make a competitive and convincing case for renewal.

Devin Foster is a member of that team. The main challenge for the team, the intake specialist says, is finding a balance between the need to market the program and complying with federal laws that require privacy of clients. To counterbalance this challenge, Foster goes out to as many community events and gatherings as possible. He leaves flyers in public places and speaks out about HOPWA program at events like Fondren's First Thursday or community forums on Friday at Koinonia Coffee House.

Many of his clients don't have a personal means of transportation. "We are going to start going to them," Foster said. "We are going to go to them and do intake with them at their houses."

Foster said HOPWA also provides bus passes to clients so they can easily access the intake center, their jobs and new residences.

Hinds County has the highest number of HIV/AIDS cases in Mississippi, so numbers back the program's importance in the Jackson area. HOPWA serves individuals, families and couples (in domestic partnerships) if one member has AIDS.

People with HIV/AIDS are at risk of losing housing or being kicked out of their homes because of the stigma attached to the illness, said Charles Perry, the director of the PERICO Institute, who drafted the HOPWA proposal last year.

"Once people find out folks have HIV/AIDS, they get treated differently," he said. "So what we are finding is that jobs get threatened, housing accommodations get threatened particularly if they are renting and not owning."

Prejudice, Then Homelessness

The Jackson HOPWA has helped 161 families or individuals since mid-April as of press time.

So far, 44 percent of clients have received short-term rent, mortgage or utility assistance. Other clients have qualified for permanent housing placement or short-term supported housing. Supportive services including counseling, financial counseling and job searches are available to HOPWA clients free of charge.

People with HIV/AIDS can access funds specifically targeted to them in two ways in the state, depending on the county. The Jackson HOPWA serves Hinds, Rankin, Madison, Simpson and Copiah counties.

The Jackson Medical Mall runs the Jackson-Metro HOPWA, funded by a HUD grant awarded to the City of Jackson. The AIDS Services Coalition in Hattiesburg runs HOPWA in the rest of Mississippi counties, with the exception of a few northern counties administered through a Memphis program.

HOPWA administrators want to step in when prejudice leads to homelessness. The program is a part of the health-strengthening collaborative in the Jackson Medical Mall, and last year, the Mississippi Health Department had served as the middleman with HUD funding, selecting the mall for the Jackson area HOPWA administrator.

On Sept. 30, the contract with the health department ends, and the City of Jackson will control HOPWA's future.

"The City will re-bid this particular project when a new fiscal year comes about and (when) our project contract ends September 30," Perry said. "We don't know what's going to happen after that."

Nicholas Mosca, the director of the STD/HIV office at the Mississippi State Department of Health, said the department used to control the state's U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development money (which is separate from Jackson's HUD grant) and had to bring in a consulting service to help with the housing services.

Gov. Phil Bryant changed that, however, so now the Mississippi Home Corps receives the state's HUD money, allotting those funds to the AIDS Services Coalition.

Mosca said the transition of Jackson's HOPWA program to the Medical Mall took time because of the proposal process, but the Department of Health did keep a worker on the project to assist people during the transition, until the contract was signed in October. He said that the department will still want to make sure people who live with HIV get the services they need, and will continue to refer them to HOPWA.

The gap in services from last October until the clinic's opening in April could be considered what Perry called a "desert," or a period without service, for HOPWA clients. He is worried that depending on how the re-bidding goes, another gap in services might occur.

Any gap in services is detrimental because each client has a social worker and health worker assigned to him or her throughout the whole process. Service availability is key, Perry said.

"When there are no services, people go homeless," he said.

In order to make a convincing case for a successful re-bidding this fall, the team at HOPWA is hoping to serve 51 percent of their quota by the end of September to prove the program's success and importance in the community.

The HOPWA office sends applications to the Jackson Medical Mall administration to review and decide what type of housing a client receives.

For information about the Jackson-Metro HOPWA, call 769-251-1408.