AHF creates affordable housing
AHF’s Dallasonian housing project, now being remodeled, used to be a Best Western Hotel The AIDS service provider expands its housing program to Dallas DAVID TAFFET | Senior Staff Writer Taffet@DallasVoice.com The housing crisis is a public health problem, according to Imara Canady, a spokesman for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation.
So the world’s largest HIV service provider decided to do something about it. With the idea that AHF could begin providing housing faster and more efficiently than local governments were doing, the organization created the Healthy Housing Foundation.
HHF then began acquiring mostly old hotels in Los Angeles and converting them into permanent living facilities to “provide decent housing units at an affordable cost to low-income people, including families with children and those previously unsheltered or homeless.” That included not only their own clients with HIV but also those with other chronic health conditions.
The goal was “to create affordable workforce housing,” Canady said. Seniors and veterans may also qualify for HHF’s housing To meet that goal of creating affordable housing faster and at a lower cost, HHF determined it could refurbish each unit for less than $350,000, the amount currently considered the norm.
