Help for the helpers: HIV outreach center needs a new home

By Jackie Valley

Sunday, Aug. 28, 2016 | 2 a.m.

Father Joseph O’Brien remembers a time when he attended, on average, 10 funerals each week. The goodbyes seemed never-ending, the friendships far too short.

It was 1983. He was living in San Francisco, ministering to those infected with a mysterious disease called AIDS that was ravaging the West Coast city and spawning fear across the world.

“I would meet someone and bury them six months later, if not sooner,” he said.

More than three decades later, O’Brien still is helping those infected with the immune system-weakening virus. He has served as executive director of the St. Therese Center HIV Outreach — a local nonprofit organization that provides emotional support, education and social services to people living with or affected by the virus — since it opened in 1998.

Now, there’s one glaring difference: People are living longer with the virus that causes AIDS, meaning the need is even greater.

Given astronomical medical costs, HIV-positive people and their families often need help affording basics such as food and clothing, O’Brien said. That’s where the St. Therese Center and its volunteers come into play, offering a variety of services, including haircuts and an on-site food pantry.

The outreach center operates mostly out of a brown-and-yellow building on the grounds of the St. Rose Dominican-Rose de Lima Campus Hospital in Henderson, but St. Therese Center is on the hunt for a new home because its $1-per-year lease is coming to an end.

Hospital renovations, limited parking and the center’s growing clientele contributed to the decision to move, O’Brien said. He has been meeting periodically with hospital officials to plan the center’s departure.

“As their clientele continues to grow, they were outgrowing the building and it was putting a further burden on the already limited parking for our Rose de Lima campus,” hospital spokeswoman Kathleen Ryan wrote in an email. “We will continue to work with them to make this a smooth transition. St. Therese does amazing work in the community for those living with HIV, and we want to make sure their work is not interrupted.”

The trick, of course, will be finding a suitable new building that doesn’t break the center’s $550,000 annual budget. “We’re hoping we’ll be able to do it,” O’Brien said.

Best-case scenario: A company or benefactor offers the outreach center a similar $1-per-year lease and writes off the generous act as a tax deduction.

Backup plan: The outreach center finds a place with very reasonable rent and can increase its financial contributions to ensure services don’t suffer.

Either way, O’Brien stressed that the St. Therese Center had no plans to shut down. The community need is too great, he said. Roughly 6,000 people rely on its services.

“It’s certainly not stabilizing,” he said. “People are still getting infected.”

State health statistics prove his point: In Clark County, 432 people were diagnosed with HIV in 2015, according to the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health. Statewide, 10,138 people were living with HIV last year, including 8,753 in Clark County.

The virus most commonly is spread through sexual intercourse or contaminated needles and syringes. Although medical advances have lengthened the lifespan of HIV-positive people, it remains a dangerous disease that shouldn’t be taken lightly, O’Brien said.

And, despite all the awareness campaigns, stigma remains. People recently diagnosed with the virus often enter the St. Therese Center scared and ashamed, but the center’s volunteers treat them with the kindness and dignity they deserve, O’Brien says.

The atmosphere encourages people to continue visiting for help with food, clothes or even emotional support. “There are some people who will take a two-hour bus ride to us,” O’Brien said. “That says a lot.”

If the outreach center lucks into an affordable, more centrally located building, those bus rides could become a lot shorter.

“The clients are wonderful and grateful,” he said. “They don’t want to see this disappear. That would create a great hole in the community.”