I did my Chuck Green Fellowship with Clare Housing, a non-profit in Minneapolis that provides long-term housing and other care resources for people with HIV. I found Clare Housing through research into the history of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Minnesota. Clare started as a small community group running two hospice care houses and has since grown to support over 200 residents. Along side independent housing, Clare also provides in-home nursing care for residents in need and connects residents with other support services.
During this experience, my primary project was creating a database for quantifying resident outcomes and demographics. This information is essential in tracking trends in HIV risk factors and comorbidities across Minnesota. Clare Housing also reports these outcomes to sponsors, the state of Minnesota, and to their Board of Trustees. Working with resident data gave me a unique insight into the experiences of Minnesotans with HIV, including instances of discrimination, barriers to care, and quality of life. The most interesting part of this project was my ongoing navigation of how to record and quantify personal information about residents that was often observed and not reported. Because Clare Housing relies so heavily on the relationships of trust between staff and residents, many important data points were confided personally between people and never documented. This “problem” gave me a unique insight into the operations of a community organization as opposed to a larger corporation.
My second project was to create a physical space to store resident belongings and organizational donations. This project provided valuable hands-on experience with the benefits and difficulties of working in the non-profit sector. Through Clare Housing, I also gained insight into the ever-changing world of HIV care, specifically the focus on longer-term care and the importance of antiretroviral therapy.