‘Wellness House’ Serves Detroit’s HIV/AIDS Patients
Wellness House, Michigan's first shelter for people with HIV and AIDS, is working to expand its services within the Detroit area, the Detroit Free Press reports. The not-for-profit home has housed 180 people with HIV-related diseases and provides food for an additional 425 people a month. In 1999, it distributed 65 tons of food to area residents. Wellness House administrators continue to push for more housing and food stamps for people living with HIV-related infections. The Michigan Department of Health estimates that there are 13,000 HIV-infected people in the state. Seventy percent of males and 86% of women who are HIV-positive in the Detroit metro area rely on public assistance, friends or charitable organizations, according to a department survey released in the summer of 1999. Gloria Sims, who coordinates Wellness House's emergency food services, noted that after her daughter and grandson became residents of the facility, "Wellness House became my strength. I felt so alone, and they helped me realize I wasn't" (Cooper, Detroit Free Press, 11/27).
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