A groundbreaking ceremony for an AIDS Healthcare Foundation housing development in Skid Row in January 2022

Letters to the Editor: The AIDS Healthcare Foundation is a housing lifeline. It doesn’t deserve to be attacked

A groundbreaking ceremony for an AIDS Healthcare Foundation housing development in Skid Row in January 2022

A groundbreaking ceremony for an AIDS Healthcare Foundation housing development in Skid Row in January 2022. (Michael Owen Baker / For The Times)

To the editor: It is disheartening to see The Times attack the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) and its Healthy Housing Foundation (HHF) division. (“Inside the world’s largest AIDS charity’s troubled move into homeless housing,” Nov. 16)

AHF is one of the few nonprofit organizations that tries to house the homeless by reducing the eligibility requirements to a drastic minimum, giving people a chance to get on their feet with rents far below average market rates. That, in itself, is a major accomplishment — there is nothing similar in Los Angeles.

AHF and HHF serve a niche of people who can mostly sustain themselves but are underemployed or on Social Security and cannot afford the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment, which exceeds $2,000 per month. We are a savior to many of our residents just by the fact that we do not request a credit check (another major barrier to getting housed). Due to our model, many people who otherwise would be homeless end up housed.

I am a witness to how many resources AHF continually doles out to upgrade and improve its facilities. Because AHF is not a player in the government bureaucracy, and we are not greedy developers, we do not get our permit requests fast-tracked, which leads to delays in completing upgrades.

Unfortunately, today’s culture prefers to highlight the negatives and refrain from shining light on all the positives of ventures like ours.

Robert Fields, Los Angeles

The writer is housing coordinator for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation’s Healthy Housing Foundation.