SAN FRANCISCO AIDS FOUNDATION

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Causes: AIDS, AIDS Research, Civil Rights, Health

Mission: The San Francisco AIDS Foundation provides leadership to prevent new HIV infections. Linking community experience with science, the Foundation develops ground-breaking prevention programs and bold policy initiatives to promote health and create sustainable progress against HIV. Established in 1982, the Foundation refuses to accept that HIV transmission is inevitable.

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1 Story from Volunteers, Donors & Supporters

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Writer Client Served

Rating: 1

12/16/2015

I hate writing this review because it's so sad. I am 59, have had HIV since 2005, am troubled by a number of issues including 1) Sutter Health (Bay Area's octopus healthcare hospital chain) having changed my ADAP/OAHIPP enrollment person from an R.N., one of two, who acted like a warm social worker to an obnoxious guy (replaced both of them) who would not even answer what his background is, presumably as part of cost cutting. That is my immediate problem but I also have questions about 2) evaluating my own dis/ability or not (I'm self-employed but struggling), and 3) concerns over certain cognitive "crossed wires" I've been noticing, which I can't tell whether are normal symptoms of aging or something worse and invisible to others because I am bright, so if I've lost a few marbles I still seem to have plenty. :) One more piece of background for why I find this painful to post is that my longtime companion is a stalwart of the SFAF AIDS Life Cycle (fundraising bicycle ride, couple thousand riders, six days, SF to LA every June - huge undertaking.) So, needing an hour with a social worker, I called the SFAF intake line, and exactly the same as when I first caught HIV, and badly needed some help, but bizarrely (given that this IS San Francisco) could not find any (I'm not the usual social service agency client), my call today wanting time with a social worker to make sense out of what steps I should consider or take was useless. When I called today there was *no* suggestion of being able to see me, only an immediate effort (after I'd survived an incredibly abrupt receptionist) to shuttle me off to Positive Resource Center, which is a well-regarded local specialized nonprofit organization designed to help people sort out and get disability benefits (I don't think I am ready to throw in the towel on working, but would benefit from an hour of counsel about those options)...AND other available services and help which is why I started with SFAF instead of PRC to begin with. Over two decades, SFAF has absorbed nearly all of the other local AIDS Inc. nonprofits, under the theory that they deliver the services comprehensively. Not so far as I can determine as a client in need of a little bit of qualified counsel. I am just as alone as ever. This strikes me as a Red Cross-like hollowed out dominant agency which gets by simply based on size and history. One offsetting comment is that perhaps 12-15 years ago I had occasion professionally to provide service to SFAF in the context of legal/tax exemption refinements, and I found the management team to be extraordinarily competent and responsive. Just not when I needed actual help.

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