AIDS Housing Alliance Inspired by Dream

On the morning of Dec. 15, 2002, Brian Basinger woke up at 9 a.m. and immediately said, "I'll do it, but it has to be connected to the people."

The recipient of this pledge? Simple: "God."

"I woke up because there was this loud, booming voice in my dream," Basinger said, waving his hands in the air to emulate the voice. "The voice said, 'You must organize housing for people with AIDS.'"

Whether it was the dream, the medication he was on, destiny or insanity, Basinger doesn't care. Since that day in 2002, he has successfully built the AIDS Housing Alliance, an organization that helps HIV-positive people find housing.

During that time, he had been taking a new medication that gave him the "best dreams in the world." After his revelation, he got up, put on water for coffee and before the water had boiled, his phone rang. It was his new landlord, who Basinger had met during a harrowing five months of trying to find an apartment with his boyfriend.

"He told us, 'You guys are so wonderful and I want to help other people with AIDS find housing,'" Basinger explained, imitating his landlord's Midwestern twang. "We have two building units open, could you find anyone to live there?"

Basinger and his boyfriend, James, are both HIV-positive. During the housing hunt, James was living in a Single Room Occupancy and Basinger was being evicted from the apartment he had spent half of his life and seen 30 HIV-positive friends die in. Basinger's landlord decided to give the couple housing because his brother had died of AIDS.

The dream and the situation clicked. Basinger immediately called the Bay Area Reporter and the San Francisco Chronicle. He called someone at a housing organization and got a desk. By noon, the AIDS Housing Alliance was born.

"The cost to house someone with AIDS is $6,000 per year," he said. "When people have stable housing, it cuts AIDS transmission in half. Housing is the most documented, cost-effective tool we have."

The White House is currently holding town hall meetings across the country in order to discuss the national HIV/AIDS strategy. On Oct. 16, Jeffrey Crowley, director of the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, met with the San Francisco community at the Mission Bay Conference Center at UC San Francisco. The issue of housing took the stage for a period and many, including Basinger, emphasized the need for housing to be part of the discussion.

"I was doing some lobbying and Jeff Crowley invited me to come up with recommendations for the first AIDS Housing Plan," Basinger said. "In the next two weeks, I'm putting together a group of people in the Bay Area to help inform about our contributions to the national plan."

As well as helping people with AIDS find housing, AHA helps them obtain jobs for the pride in obtaining employment and because a steady paycheck makes for easier findings in the housing hunt.

One of Basinger's employees is Rodrigo Ibanez, a 40-year-old gay man who was born in Mexico City and used to work in San Diego as an accountant, lost his job due to the financial turmoil and decided to move to San Francisco. He thought things would be better here; there was a thriving gay community and he had experienced the welcoming warmth of the Castro and the shopping opportunities of Union Square as a tourist.

"When I moved here, it was as hard as it was in San Diego," Ibanez said. "I ran out of money, my savings and I was homeless. I never slept in the street, and I'm lucky for that, but I could never secure housing."

Ibanez eventually started living in the Drake Hotel, an SRO in the Tenderloin.

"I appreciate that I never had to live on the street, but that place was such an experience," Ibanez said. "It was awful and dirty, there were roaches and rats and I was in a state of shock. Even coming from Mexico City, I was not prepared for the Tenderloin."

Someone eventually told Ibanez about AHA and he came initially as a client, looking for housing. He started living in Brandy Moore Rafiki House, where he still lives today. Once he got settled, he started volunteering at AHA and was offered a job as the financial services coordinator.

"I went from being out of control to helping people in the same situation," Ibanez said. "It is wonderful, and I love what I do."

Working in the Tenderloin, Ibanez still shudders when he has to walk past the Drake Hotel.

"I get that feeling of desperation and hopelessness is triggered every time I walk by," he said. "But it makes me more willing to do what I can do for the people who come in here."

There are $660 million new medical costs due to HIV/AIDS a year in San Francisco alone, according to Basinger.

People searching for housing are sure that discrimination against people with AIDS plays a part in limiting options.

"I had an SSI (Supplemental Security Income) and a Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS (HOPLA) grant," Ricky Darnell, 51, said. "It didn't take landlords long to put two and two together."

Darnell has had AIDS since 1989 and has lived through various housing situations. Currently, he is staying at SROs as an alternative to living with a friend who is "a huge junkie and a total mess."

"I'm taking a break from him this week," Darnell said.

Because he was employed until recently, Darnell has never gone to AHA but knows their work.

"It's a great agency," he said. "If I'm in this conundrum for much longer, I'm going to do an intake with them."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study in 2007 saying homeless or unstably housed persons were two to six times more likely to "have recently used hard drugs, shared needs or exchanged sex" than people who also had low incomes, but were stably housed.

The San Francisco Department of Public Health also found that 10 percent of the homeless population has "full-blown AIDS," according to Basinger.

"Forty percent of people who get AIDS are homeless," Basinger said. "There is a need for awareness and an appropriate response. It's a communicable disease. If we house people, we cut down on transmission."