Kelly L’Hirondelle (left), the incoming executive director of HIV/AIDS support service YouthCo, hopes to soon secure a new home for the organization, which is being forced out of its current location due to a funding shortfall.

Credit: Doug Shanks

NEWS: HIV/AIDS group faces homelessness

By Jessica Barrett

Things are just gearing up at YouthCo AIDS Society on a weekday morning around 10am. A few staff members, all of them under 30, trickle into the Helmcken Street office and casually plunk down on the couches in the common room for a meeting. Outside the front door, a beautiful black lab lazes in the sun. “We usually have one or two dogs around,” executive director Stephanie Grant explains as she leads the way through the room. “Animals really help calm down stressful situations.”

A calm, welcoming environment is crucial for the 75 HIV- or Hepatitis C-positive 15-to-29-year-olds who regularly access YouthCo’s peer counselling and support services. Here, young people can come for health and emotional advice on dealing with a new diagnosis, to get medical referrals, or even to find someone to offer support when they go to get tested or find out their results. YouthCo also offers food, clothing, and, most importantly, somewhere for its predominantly homeless clients to go.

But on the eve of its 16th birthday, YouthCo may become homeless, too.

A subtenant of AIDS Vancouver, which was forced to cut short its lease in the Helmcken Street building after being handed significant funding cuts from the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority late last year, YouthCo has until July 31 to vacate its current home and find another.

“We’re really connecting to us turning 16. And most youth [we counsel], when they’re 16, are often facing things like homelessness,” says Grant, noting YouthCo has more than 125 regular volunteers that reach more than 6,000 young people each year with the its prevention-education workshops in schools and custody centres across B.C.

This will be the organization’s third move in the last six years, Grant says, explaining that development opportunities in the downtown core have led to most landlords automatically including a demolition clause in their leases. And with steadily rising rental rates, each displacement makes it more difficult for YouthCo to find a downtown home.

“In the downtown core, it’s really challenging to find affordable space for small non-profits, and [downtown is] where it’s important for us to be,” says Grant. “It’s the easiest place for youth from all over the city to be able to come. The further that we get moved out, the harder it is for us to reach the youth that we need to reach.”

Grant says HIV-infection rates are relatively stable across Canada, though increasing slowly. In B.C., however, the burden is disproportionately high. Grant says she’s seeing a sharp increase in new infections among young aboriginal women, while young gay men still account for more than 50 per cent of new HIV and Hepatitis C cases.

The situation among street-involved youth who are injection drug users is also distressing, says Dr. Thomas Kerr of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, whose research has shown a public health crisis may be brewing among that population. “The situation involving young people and HIV in Vancouver is something the general public should be very, very concerned about,” he told WE.

Dr. Kerr’s research has shown community-based and peer-supported models of intervention like those employed by YouthCo are the most effective methods to reach street-involved youth. As a result, he considers YouthCo an invaluable player in the fight against HIV/AIDS. “In terms of the scope and the range of services being offered to young people living with or vulnerable to HIV infection, all I can say is that I regard their organization as being completely essential,” he said. “Because they’re working directly with the community, because they’re delivering peer-based programs, they tend to be one step ahead of the bureaucracy.”

Dr. Kerr was not aware of YouthCo’s potential homeless status, but sounded alarmed when informed of it by WE. “Given what our research has shown, which is very high risk-taking among street-involved youth in Vancouver, we should be redoubling — we should be tripling — our efforts to address this, and this certainly involves ensuring appropriate support for organizations like YouthCo, which are working on the ground and reaching those populations that need our support,” he said.

Back on Helmcken Street, Grant is preparing to wrap up her five-and-a-half-year tenure with YouthCo and head to the Yukon for a summer off. She’ll be passing the torch to incoming executive director Kelly L’Hirondelle on July 9 at YouthCo’s annual fundraiser and birthday party in Gastown.

L’Hirondelle hopes he’ll be able to announce a new address for YouthCo at the fundraiser, but there are several hurdles to overcome first. Of the spaces he’s seen, a few have been suitable, but most are out of YouthCo’s price range and require additional renovations at its expense. Plus, L’Hirondelle says, many landlords aren’t particularly keen on renting to youth-driven organizations, much less those dealing with HIV and AIDS. “I think a lot of people have their own stereotypes and judgments about youth in general, and don’t give enough credit to what young people are capable of. So, right off the bat, it’s a challenge to even get out there,” he says. “And then, to add on top of that, what we do — it’s like adding another strike.”

YouthCo’s annual fundraiser, An Acquired Taste IV: YouthCo’s Sassy Sweet 16, takes place Friday, July 9, at 151 W. Cordova (the former Storyeum building), 7pm. Tickets $25 from YouthCo.org. An afterparty follows at Lick (455 Abbott); no cover with ticket stub.

reporter@westender.com