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AFH Timeline

From February 1982 through today….

AIDS Foundation Houston (AFH) is founded, as an offshoot of the Kaposi’s Sarcoma (KS) Committee, by a group of local medical professionals and community activists.   AFH was created to provide support and assistance with daily living to persons with AIDS. AFH is the first AIDS service organization established in Texas and one of the first in the nation.

1982. AFH establishes an AIDS information hotline.

1982. AFH co-produces the country’s first educational booklet on AIDS, distributing 20,000 copies in June and July. (Those early brochures used drawings of teddy bears to communicate safer-sex information. My, how things have changed! Now it’s naked men and photos of people having sex!)

1983. AFH opens McAdory House, the first privately funded residence for people with AIDS in the United States. McAdory House was located on Missouri Street in the Montrose.

1984. AFH produces more than 100,000 brochures and gives more than 200 community talks and presentations on AIDS.

stonesoup
Stone Soup is now located in the AFH offices on Weslayan and is still staffed with the help of volunteers.

1987.

Stone Soup opens at McAdory House on Valentine’s Day. Stone Soup is now located in the AFH offices on Weslayan and is still staffed with the help of volunteers.

1988. AFH receives a $270,000 grant from the Centers for Disease Control and hires 11 full-time staff to provide care and prevention.

1989. AFH opens Beecher-Wilson apartments, a 30-unit independent living complex, providing stable, long-term, and affordable housing to persons with AIDS.

1990. McAdory House closes, and AFH purchases the building on Westheimer that would eventually house Stone Soup.

1990. AFH begins providing case management to clients to assist them in navigating the increasingly complex service delivery system.

1990. AFH organizes the first AIDS Walk held in Houston (then called “From All Walks of Life”).

1992. AFH begins providing rental assistance/emergency rent assistance to clients to help them gain financial stability.

1993. The newly remodeled Stone Soup opens at 608 Westheimer.

1994. AFH services include case management, information and referral, housing and rental assistance programs, Stone Soup food pantry, and education.

1995. AFH staff and volunteers reach more than 70,000 individuals through outreach and prevention education activities. Target populations include gay men as well as sex workers, homeless persons, substance abusing populations, and at-risk youth.

1995. AFH establishes the Red Ribbon Toy Drive in order to provide toys to children infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.

1996. AFH begins Camp Hope, a weeklong, sleep-away camp for children living with HIV.It is the first camp in Texas specifically designed for HIV+ children.

1997. AFH, in cooperation with Leadership Houston, implements Camp H.U.G. (Hope, Understanding, Giving), a weekend camp for HIV+ individuals and their family members.

1998. AFH completes construction on A Friendly Haven, a 30-unit apartment complex that provides housing, support, and other social services to HIV+ women and their children.

1998. AFH, as fiscal agent, establishes Project Life Road in order to offer a full continuum of services to the homeless HIV/AIDS population. Clients receive stabilized housing, case management, and mental health, substance abuse, and employment preparation services.

1999. AFH begins providing HIV prevention education at five prison units within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ.)

2001. AFH and Houston Habitat for Humanity join forces to create Project Porchlight, a program to provide permanent housing for low-income families living with HIV. This is the first collaboration ever between Habitat and an AIDS service organization.

2002. Construction is completed on the first Project Porchlight house for an AFH client and her family.

2002. AFH convenes the first Peer Education Conference for offenders within the Texas prison system. The conference was not only the first in Texas, but it was first of its kind (in size and scope) in the nation.

2002. AFH receives federal funding for Project Wall Talk, a peer-to-peer HIV education program for offenders within the TDCJ. Within next 3 years, AFH will train over 1,100 inmates to serve as peer educators in 67 prisons across the state.

2002. AFH begins Get Started, an intensive case management program for HIV+ offenders of color, designed to link them to medications and medical care in the “free world” within two weeks of their release from incarceration.

2004. AFH enters into a collaboration with the Baylor International Pediatric AIDS Initiative, wherein AFH funds and creates camps for HIV+ children in countries where BIPAI establishes pediatric AIDS clinics.

2005. AFH funds camps in Romania and convenes its first international camp in Botswana as a part of the partnership with Baylor.

2005. Get Started is included in Connecting to Care , a compendium of 25 model programs in the nation, produced by AIDS Action in Washington, D.C.

2005. The Safe Prisons Project is born when AFH, at the request of TDCJ (in order to meet the requirements of the congressional Prison Rape Elimination Act), expands the prison peer education program to address the topic of Offender Sexual Assault Awareness.

2006. In June, AFH launches the Teen Leadership Forum for HIV+ youth at the University of Houston. The forum is designed to help prepare teens, most of whom were born with HIV, for productive and self-sufficient lives as HIV+ adults.

2006. AFH, in partnership with Baylor, launches another international camp for HIV+ children, this time in Malawi, while continuing to conduct camps in Botswana and funding camps in Romania.

2006. This year, AFH has served over 5,500 men, women, and children living with HIV/AIDS in the Houston area.

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