SFAF Annual Report 2023: Inspired, committed, hopeful

On this page, you’ll read more about the impact our programs and services have had on ending the HIV epidemic. City-wide, HIV infections continue to decline thanks to the consistent and ever-expanding access to HIV testing, prevention, care, and support provided by our agency and our partners. You’ll also read more about how our programs and services are finding innovative ways to tackle issues that intersect with HIV: lending support to people aging with HIV and AIDS, ensuring that Queer people can easily access non-judgmental STI prevention and care, ensuring that people who use drugs have the harm reduction resources they need to prevent HIV, Hepatitis, and overdose, to name a few.

Significant investments in the foundations of our agency–our staff, our leadership, and our physical locations–have made it possible for these programs and services to continue and grow. In the past year, we re-assessed our space needs and, after more than a decade in the same building, made the decision to relocate our main office to a building that more closely matches the needs of our clients, volunteers, and our staff. With the closing of the city’s Tenderloin Community Linkage Center in late-2022, we increased service provision through our Harm Reduction Center in the SoMa/Tenderloin neighborhood, and continue to plan for expansion of much-needed overdose prevention and harm reduction services.

Investments in staff and retention of talent continue to be a priority for our newly-formed People & Culture team, along with Justice, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion policies and programs that build a diverse workforce representative of the communities we serve. Our Black staff meet the needs of Black women through the newly-established HUES program and our long-lived Black Brothers Esteem group; transgender and genderqueer staff provide counseling, case management, and support to clients who are part of our TransLife and TransCare programs; and Spanish-speaking staff connect monolingual Spanish-speaking community members to health care and social services. As the HIV epidemic shifts continues to disproportionately impact our priority communities, we are here to respond with nuance and care.

Investments in recruitment and hiring have also reflected recent priorities to diversify our staff and Board. For the first time ever, the majority of chief executives at SFAF are people of color, and our Board of Directors is composed of more than 50% people of color. These changes are representative of the historic shifts our organization is undergoing to ensure that we remain nimble, flexible, and responsive to the communities we need to serve through our work.

As we look to the future of SFAF, we remain inspired, committed, and hopeful. We are inspired by the many leaders, activists, long-term survivors, and allies who have pushed this work forward for more than 40 years. We are committed to our communities, who make this work meaningful and personal each and every day. We are hopeful for a future where health justice for all is a reality.

Thank you for supporting San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

In gratitude,

Tyler TerMeer, PhD
Chief Executive Officer
San Francisco AIDS Foundation

Our mission is to promote health, wellness, and social justice for communities most impacted by HIV, through sexual health and substance use services, advocacy, and community partnerships.

We continue working toward goals outlined in our five-year strategic plan, launched in 2019. The plan describes how we will align our human and financial resources to the following strategic priorities, with a focus on ensuring equitable access and utilization by Black, Indigenous and all people of color and other priority communities.

• Maintain, expand and pilot HIV, hepatitis C, and STI prevention and treatment, and other sexual health services to ensure equitable access and utilization by people of color.
• Maintain, expand and pilot substance use services, syringe access, and overdose prevention efforts including establishing safer injection sites.
• In partnership, create a comprehensive network of health and wellness services for people over the age of 50 who are living with HIV.
• Strengthen organizational excellence with a focus on living our values, including a commitment to racial justice.
• Respond to public health crises with a race equity strategy.