Idaho AIDS Foundation Appears to Have Closed, Associated Press Reports
The Idaho AIDS Foundation -- which provides housing, food assistance, case management services and counseling to people with HIV/AIDS -- appears to have closed, the Associated Press reports. The foundation, which receives federal grants distributed by the Idaho Housing and Finance Association to "shelter people" with AIDS, has given no notification that it is closed, but the Associated Press reports that the foundation's "doors are closed" and "messages ... have gone unanswered." Last October, the housing association froze a three-year, $1.2 million grant to the foundation on the grounds that it had refused to turn over information required for an audit. The foundation contended that providing the requested information would have been a privacy violation. Alfredo Hernandez of the Ryan White Clinic of Idaho, which focuses on getting people tested for HIV, said, "We don't know fully what [the foundation's apparent closing] is going to mean yet. I think the biggest hit is for the individuals being able to go to a place where they don't have to explain themselves and their disease." The housing association said it is in the "preliminary stages" of naming a new agency to utilize the federal grant money (Boone, Associated Press, 6/13).
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