Stop AIDS, San Francisco AIDS Foundation Talk Merger

As funding for HIV programs has declined, speculation of a merger between Stop AIDS Project and San Francisco AIDS Foundation has heated up. The boards of directors are seriously considering a combination, with an agreement possibly as early as this month, according to Bay Area Reporter sources. SFAF and Stop AIDS officials contacted by BAR neither confirmed nor denied a pending merger.

Stop AIDS is "looking at a number of options," including merging with another agency, Executive Director Kyreill Noon said in March. Since then, the agency's finances have stabilized, though several staff members had to be laid off and a satellite office on Sanchez St. near Market closed.

"We are still in conversation about it," Noon said of an SFAF/Stop AIDS merger agreement. "The talks haven't stopped; that is all I should say right now."

The agencies have already teamed up to provide services to black men who have sex with men under a new contract for a program beginning this fall. The lead agency is SFAF. SFAF is also the lead agency for two pending city contracts: one to distribute clean needles to injection drug users and a second to provide HIV testing to MSM, transgendered persons and IDUs.

"All I can say is just that we collaborate with a lot of community partners regularly and engage in merger discussions with other agencies in the community," said Ryan McKeel, SFAF spokesperson. "Stop AIDS is one of those agencies we have held merger talks with."

In 2007, SFAF absorbed both Magnet, the MSM health clinic in the Castro, and Stonewall Project, which provided harm reduction services to transgender people and MSM.

Back to other news for August 2011