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HOUSING
As part of it's mission, Frannie Peabody Center is committed to meeting the housing needs of people living with HIV/AIDS in Maine. HAVEN, Frannie Peabody Center’s statewide housing assistance program, provides rental subsidies and short-term housing and utility assistance to low-income people living with HIV/AIDS. Frannie Peabody Center partners with Shalom House, the City of Portland and Maine’s Ryan White-funded medical and case-management agencies ensuring access to housing services for people living with HIV/AIDS throughout Maine. Stable, affordable housing is a fundamental necessity for people with HIV/AIDS to receive life-saving medical and support services and decrease the likelihood of exposing others to HIV infection.
According to The National AIDS Housing Coalition, there is “strong empirical support for a shift in the HIV risk paradigm, away from a focus on individual behaviors only, to a focus on risky contexts such as homelessness and unstable housing as structural factors that must be addressed in order to effectively prevent and treat HIV.”
- 256 people living with HIV/AIDS statewide accessed some form of HAVEN Housing support in 2008
- Frannie Peabody Center clients who do not have rental subsidies will spend nearly all of their income on rent
- 42 households reporting unstable housing situations at the beginning of 2008 were in stable housing situations by the end of the year
- 6 households facing eviction were able to maintain housing
- 19 households burdened by increased heating costs were able to maintain their utilities
- Overall, 94.5% of HAVEN clients were able to obtain or maintain stable, permanent housing as a result of assistance
Cynthia’s Story
Cynthia is a 45-year-old woman who has been living with AIDS since her diagnosis in May of 1996. After several years of trial and error with HIV medications and a continuing struggle with alcohol and cocaine abuse, Cynthia decided it was time to try a geographical cure and moved to Maine. She spent a month at Maine Medical Center, and then moved into Peabody House. It was there that her life turned around.
Read Cynthia’s Story.
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