AID Atlanta Clinic to Reopen With Ryan White Funds

Five months after application technicalities cost four Atlanta AIDS organizations more than $1.3 million in federal funding, a new round of grants will enable each to resume or expand services.

AID Atlanta, the city's largest AIDS service organization, will receive funding to reopen its primary health care clinic. Project Open Hand, National AIDS Education & Services for Minorities (NAESM) and Aniz Inc. will receive at least a portion of the funds they lost when their initial grant applications were turned in less than 10 minutes late last fall.

More than 300 patients who sought care at a health clinic run by AID Atlanta had to seek other health care providers when the agency shut down its clinic on Feb. 28 after losing almost $750,000 in requested Ryan White funding. Ryan White guidelines require health care providers to have federal non-profit tax-exempt status. AID Atlanta hired a health care provider who applied for the status, but did not have it in place by the application deadline, agency officials said at the time. But AID Atlanta, now using the non-profit Morehouse Medical Associates to provide care, will re-open the clinic Aug. 1 after receiving more than $400,000 in a second-round of Ryan White funding. The agency will also receive an additional $279,000 for case management related services, said Chris Parsons, AID Atlanta director of advocacy and community relations.

Aniz Inc., an agency providing HIV-related support and services to families and children, will receive about $126,480 for mental health and substance abuse services, and an additional $30,932 from the Minority AIDS Initiative. NAESM will receive about $87,056 for mental health, substance abuse and support services, according to Jeff Cheek, the Fulton County official who oversees funding through the federal Ryan White CARE Act. Project Open Hand, which serves meals to 1,058 clients including 850 people with AIDS, will receive $421,950, mostly for support services, and an additional $23,000 under the minority initiative, Cheek said.

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