The AIDS Housing Alliance/SF was founded in January 2004 by James Nykolay and Brian Basinger. The disabled couple with AIDS had spent 5 months trying to find a landlord willing to rent to James with his Section 8 subsidy. Brian was in the middle of an Ellis Act eviction from his home of 14 years by Jan Neufeld, a real estate agent with Keller-Williams Realty, who bought his building to flip as TIC's.

Brian and James realized they did not know a single person with AIDS who was not going thru similar housing difficulties. Brian was the 18th household on his block to be evicted thru the Ellis Act to make TIC's, and the last person with AIDS to be evicted. His neighbor, Chuck, was burned out of the home he had lived in for over 30 years. Chuck was forced to move back to his family farm in South Carolina where he died because he could not get access to the medication to keep him alive.

On December 15th, 2003, Brian awoke from a dream in which a booming voice commanded "You must organize housing for people with AIDS". Three hours later he had a donated desk at the Housing Rights Committee/SF and a committment for articles in the local newspapers. AIDS Housing Alliance/SF was born.

James and Brian founded AHA/SF with money from their disability checks to help other PWA's going thru the same traumatic experiences they had suffered. In all their months of searching, no local AIDS organization had been able to provide them with the assistance they needed. What they discovered is that the AIDS organizations didn't know housing, and the housing organizations didn't know AIDS. 

They founded AIDS Housing Alliance/SF to bridge this divide and to provide a place of information, advocacy, understanding and support for people with AIDS, by people with AIDS. Until you have been fighting for your life while fighting homelessness, you don't know what we've gone thru. We needed a place to get the kind of service and understanding that can only come from other disabled people with AIDS who have shared our struggle.

We are taking the AIDS movement back.