Rooftops Canada and Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development. HIV, AIDS and Housing Issues. Ottawa and Toronto.

ABSTRACT: Together with the União de Movimento de Moradia em Alagoas (UMM, Brazil), National AIDS Housing Coalition (USA), Red Habitat (Bolivia) and CONGEH (Cameroon) Rooftops Canada hosted a networking event at the WUF 5, held in Rio De Janeiro, Brazil titled” Housing, HIV and AIDS: Sharing Knowledge, Making Connections”…

HIV is a serious health problem in Ontario. HIV continues to be a life threatening illness with no cure. An estimated 24,891 Ontarians are currently infected with HIV, 8,799 have died, and over 1,000 new cases are diagnosed each year. Historically, the populations most at risk of HIV across the province have been…

Maxine Davis, Director of the Dr. Peter Foundation in Vancouver, BC describes the care of people with HIV/AIDS as “complex care,” because the often unstable lives of HIV positive individuals makes it very difficult for them to access or sustain treatment.
“As a health care system we haven’t figured out how to effectively connect and engage people in a sustained way with the treatment…It is because the profile of individuals who have yet to benefit from HIV treatment are individual’s whose lives are made very chaotic by mental illness and addiction,” …

HIV/AIDS and housing instability can often go hand in hand. The cost of treatment, combined with periods of illness and other issues, can make it difficult to make ends meet. Without support, the financial and physical burden of the disease can lead to housing insecurity and sometimes, homelessness. The recent 12-month findings of the Positive Spaces, Healthy Places project show that 42% of research participants…