Holistic approach to helping those with HIV
Luis Carrasco says Project CORE vitally provides stability to those Houstonians with HIV who require services far beyond just medical help.
Four days before his birthday, Ty Allen learned he had HIV.
The East Texas native had moved to Houston a few months before. He had a place to live and a job. Even if he was struggling financially, he was happy to be away from his hometown and in the big city. He was turning 22.
While having HIV has stopped being the death sentence it once was, the diagnosis left him numb.
“I was still going to work, I was still living my life the way I had been, but I just couldn’t stop thinking about all the changes that were coming,” Allen told me.
It took him a month to begin to process what was happening, he said. But while he was frozen emotionally, his financial situation continued to falter. He had been in a car wreck. His insurance had lapsed, so he was left without transportation and stuck with a fine.
“There are moments when really dark thoughts go through your mind,” he said. “You think, ‘I don’t know what to do; is this the end of the road for me?’”
Just as things threatened to spin out of control, he was able to sign up for Project CORE, a program designed to help people with HIV whose needs extend beyond medical help. CORE, which stands for Coordination of Resources and Employment, is a joint initiative launched in 2018 by AIDS Foundation Houston in partnership with Avenue 360 Health & Wellness.
The program is meant to not only bring a patient’s HIV under control, but to provide stability through housing and employment resources, said Diane Arms, director of behavioral health at Avenue 360.
“If we shy away from addressing those issues, we are doing a disservice to the patient, because we can get them their medication — there’s a lot of medication assistance programs,” she said. “But if they don’t have access to transportation, or if they don’t have a safe place where they can sleep, or a way to pay the $2 copay for their prescription, then it just snowballs.”
Just as no one thing is the cause for people who are struggling, there is no single solution. That’s why the existence of Project CORE is encouraging.
The program is one of a dozen in the U.S. designated as Special Projects of National Significance and funded by the federal Health Resources and Services Administration. The goal is to develop a model to improve health outcomes through a holistic approach.
This multi-pronged intervention is a more effective way to not only provide needed services, but to help people bounce off the safety net. Talking to Allen, you quickly see that his needs extend beyond having a place to stay. Growing up, he lived at different times with his mother, father and grandmother. He’s been on his own since he was 17 and matter-of-factly states he never had someone to influence him in a positive way.
Allen has been in the program for about eight months. Through workforce development and his case manager, he has learned a lot, he said, including life and social skills he lacked — even how to do laundry.
“They are helpful, and they are generous, but they are not all-giving,” he said. “They’re going to help you, but you’ve got to be responsible.”
Project CORE has stopped recruiting, topping out at 111 clients, and is now being evaluated by the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work. So far, preliminary data is encouraging, Arms said. With funding running out next year, they hope to use the results to secure additional backing to continue the program.
The latest numbers show Houston had more than 1,000 new diagnoses in 2017 and close to 26,000 Houstonians living with HIV — almost 80 percent of cases are black and Latino men. According to studies, half of them worry about becoming homeless.
“If we change the life of one person, we’re changing the lives of all the lives that person touches,” she said. “So, we may have helped 111 people, but we’re impacting their networks and their families.”
When I met Allen last month, he was starting a new job and hoped to get a car soon. He sees himself going to school and starting his own business.
He turns 23 in January and plans to leave the program shortly after, giving someone else a chance.
“I know I’m not the only one who needs help,” he told me. “There’s only room for a handful of people … and Houston is how big?”