In partnership to ensure “every door is the right door”
With funding from San Francisco Department of Public Health, SFAF is proud to participate in an effort to fortify the network of health and social service systems in the city providing quality, culturally-competent sexual health and substance use services through an equity lens.
Previously, a patchwork of social service organizations, including San Francisco AIDS Foundation, existed to deliver free services such as HIV testing and linkage to care, PrEP, STI testing and treatment, hepatitis C testing and cure, and harm reduction resources across the city. Oftentimes, nonprofits would specialize in serving a particular community or type of client, based on their staffing models or physical location. What if community organizations could work together to better cater to community needs and raise the bar for service delivery?
That’s the model delivered through Health Access Points (HAPs) in San Francisco, which were formed through an equity-focused funding model structured by SFDPH. A total of seven have been formed to meet the needs of the following populations: men who have sex with men; Latine communities; Black and African American communities; transgender women; young adults; people who use substances; and Asian and Pacific Islanders.
A few years into the project, and exciting progress is being made to ensure that quality services are being delivered city-wide in ways that address the disproportionate impacts of HIV, hepatitis C, and STIs on communities of color and other underserved populations.
The goal is to ensure that “every door is the right door” when clients come to access services: Regardless of which agency is visited for services, clients will find high-quality HIV, STI, PrEP, and hepatitis C services and resources. Cross-agency collaboration is key.
For the Latine HAP, with lead agency Instituto Familiar de la Raza (IFR), SFAF’s community engagement team has led initiatives to meet people “where they are” with the overdose prevention medicine naloxone, hygiene kits, basic needs resources, and testing/treatment resources. Meeting people at shelters and on the street, many of the individuals seen by the team are recent immigrants, experiencing homelessness, and monolingual Spanish speakers.
“The Latine HAP is a collaboration of trusted community-based organizations that have been serving the Latine community since the beginning of the HIV epidemic,” said Jorge Zepeda, Director of Latine Health at SFAF. “Collectively, we organize testing events, educational activities, prevention strategies, and actions. Together, we are the Latine community responding and serving our Latine immigrant community.”
For the young adults HAP, SFAF teams worked with LYRIC to create a dedicated drop-in time at SFAF’s clinic for LYRIC clients to get sexual health and HIV testing and treatment. And, the teams have collaborated on social events to draw new clients to the clinic.
“We’ve had to be creative in the activities we use to bring youth to the Castro clinic,” explained Roger Jackson, who leads HAP operations at SFAF. “We have to ensure that young people feel safe accessing those services.”
Sex Toy Bingo will be one event held in January for young people to encourage them to come in to SFAF’s clinic in the Castro, explained TJ Lane, who also leads the HAP work at SFAF. “Part of this is just thinking through what events will draw in young people. What do they want to do? And then being able to offer testing at those events.”
Lane said that future events may feature performances and information from local drag queens.
Jackson and Lane explained that the HAP serving Black and African American communities in San Francisco (Umoja HAP) has made considerable progress. SFAF is a capacity-building partner to Rafiki Coalition, who is the lead agency on the Black/African American HAP.
Currently, Umoja HAP hosts “pop-up” clinics in Bayview, Fillmore Western Addition, Visitacion Valley, and OMI (Ocean View-Merced Heights-Ingleside) neighborhoods, offering a ready presence in these neighborhoods to establish trust and attempt to overcome the medical mistrust that can keep people away from healthcare services. Community engagement teams at SFAF including Black Health and harm reduction services have provided staffing and offered basic needs resources at the pop-ups.
In the next year, Umoja HAP is expected to open its own clinic in the former bank building on Third Street in the Bayview. In January, Rafiki hosted a “soft opening” of the space to showcase the variety of services the clinic will offer. The clinic will provide a full suite of sexual health, hepatitis C, HIV, mental health, family planning, and substance health services to the Bayview community. SFAF is currently working behind the scenes to help Rafiki develop the clinic infrastructure and receive the licensing needed to deliver clinical services.
“We have considerable expertise that we can bring to the team from our own experience operating our Magnet sexual health clinic,” explained Jackson. “It’s exciting to know that SFAF’s provision of sexual health services goes far beyond the services we offer in the Castro–we’re part of building up services across San Francisco.”
