California: Lack of Money Shutters Salinas HIV/AIDS Center

State budget cuts have forced Central Coast HIV/AIDS Services Salinas to shut its drop-in center, a field office that provided needle exchange, condoms, and STD screening. The center was strategically located near Chinatown, and many of its clients were homeless, addicts or sex workers. CCHAS maintains an office on Baldwin Street in Salinas, and there it will continue offering services that include treatment referrals, counseling, and some case management.

Losing the Chinatown center is "going to make that more difficult," said Jim Smith, the organization's director of education, prevention, and needle exchange. "Right now, we're dependent on private donors."

The program exchanges about 8,000 needles every month, including about 5,000 from the drop-in center, said Roxanne Butterfield.

"The possibility of transferring hepatitis C or HIV is greater because they don't have that accessibility to the clean syringes," Smith said. "Sometimes you get a guest, or client, that comes in and we may be the only person that has a straight head at that moment in time to talk to and listen."

To mitigate the loss, CCHAS plans to run a clinic at nearby Dorothy's Kitchen, an anti-poverty mission affiliated with the Catholic Church. CCHAS staff will have to do more mobile outreach, Smith said. "My goal is to meet those clients where they're at," he said.

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