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HIV Alliance Brings Testing and Education to CSS Communities

By Keith Dickey - Oct 30, 2024

Since August, residents of the 14 CSS Communities in Eugene have seen a white van and new faces arrive on site during Tuesday group meetings. HIV Alliance is a Eugene-based nonprofit focused on supporting people with HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, and other sexually transmitted diseases—and actively promoting prevention through testing and education.

Starting in August, HIV Alliance teams began a schedule of weekly visits that will eventually cover all CSS sites. This connection represents another link connecting important health care services to CSS clients.

Anna Alkin is the Program Coordinator at CSS managing a variety of enrichment opportunities for community members ranging from the arts to health care. “Our two organizations met and tried to see if there was a way we could provide service to our clients,” she recalls. The plan of visiting each site weekly on a rotating basis with the HIV Alliance mobile testing van was established. Anna reflects that there was some initial resistance from community members that the HIV Alliance team has allayed. “I’ve been so impressed with the quality of care and the presence that they bring,” says Anna. “They are so aware culturally; they are super relaxed and don’t bat an eye. A lot of our folks have medical trauma so it’s great that we don’t have to take them to a clinic, but the care can come to them.”

As the Bilingual Education Coordinator at HIV Alliance, Scottie Gilbert attends site group meetings at each CSS community and focuses on raising awareness, testing, and treatment of sexually transmitted diseases and Hepatitis C. “We want to be sure that people understand where their risk for these things come from. We see a lot of misconceptions,” says Scottie. “I try and communicate that ‘yes; these are called sexually transmitted diseases but we can also get them from other risky behaviors.’ We really want to reset that thinking and make them understand that we don’t live in a vacuum. Our goal is to give people the tools to empower themselves. We want to help them understand the risks and to make good decisions.”

An essential part of the service that HIV Alliance offers is on-site testing for HIV, syphilis, and Hepatitis C. If they choose, CSS clients can take a quick finger poke test at the HIV Alliance van. To accommodate the testing schedule, HIV Alliance visits each CSS site on consecutive weeks so that results of tests taken on the first visit are available the next visit. The HIV Alliance team also makes sure to offer their services to the community at their Eugene office in addition to the site visits. HIV Alliance is in position to coordinate and connect the CSS community to important follow-up health care.

“Depending on people’s needs we try to do what we can,” says Scottie. “We run a peer support program here at the Alliance that’s open to anyone who is at risk or dealing with substance use disorder and it is not contingent on their HIV status. So even people who are HIV negative can still get plugged into what we offer.” Scottie notes that HIV Alliance has connections with many local health care providers who they can often connect to independent of the person’s HIV status. “If we can’t do it (provide service) we can help figure out who can,” says Scottie.

Even though this partnership is new, the plan by both parties is to make these HIV Alliance visits ongoing. With each site seeing from three to five community members per visit tested, the partnership is viewed by all as very successful. Anna at CSS envisions that eventually the program may be expanded to the wider CSS network of clients including approximately 200 people currently on waitlists for Huts. “We definitely see the program as ongoing,” says Anna. Scottie at HIV Alliance concurs. “We plan to keep it going as long as we both feel it is sustainable.”

Scottie Gilbert emphasizes that the issues of STD, Hepatitis, and other diseases is something that all of us need to be educated about. “Our sexual health and our physical health can be understood as a social issue. And if we understand it as a social issue what that really involves is communities uplifting each other, making sure that we have each other’s backs. That if we are seeing disparities or seeing lack of access in services we can provide that we jump in and do it. We don’t live in a vacuum.”

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A Driver’s License Can Alter Lives

January 22, 2025

Soon after Mark moved into the Skinner Safe Spot Community in 2022 he got a CSS staff job on the maintenance crew. He worked 10–12 hours a week, and his primary responsibility was cleaning up Huts when clients moved out, preparing them for the next occupants. He didn’t have a driver’s license. He had one “many years ago” in California before he became homeless, but then he didn’t have a vehicle and he let his license lapse. He had never had a license in Oregon, where he moved in 2014. So for the maintenance job, he says, “I would commute by way of my bicycle. I carried all the cleaning products and brooms and mops and whatever I needed on my bicycle.” Things went well, and when the maintenance crew was reorganized about six months later, he was offered a new position, at 30 hours a week, in which he would be the primary maintenance person for three communities. It required he drive a CSS vehicle, so the offer was contingent on him having a driver’s license. “My supervisor at the time told me that CSS

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A CSS Yurt on a rainy cold December afternoon in West Eugene may not be a place you would expect to find two Eugene area bank branch managers enrolling new depositors. Even more remarkable is the effort and journey that brought them there. The story begins earlier this year when Downtown Eugene KeyBank Branch Manager Michelle Khanthanhot reached out to Blake Burrell, CSS Director of Community Impact. What ensued is a focused grassroots effort by Michelle and another KeyBank Eugene Branch Manager Jose Contreras to educate the CSS community about financial health and planning. “For KeyBank it is important that we are involved in our community,” says Michelle. “Blake and I connected and it has just kind of evolved in the last 6 months.”

Grants That Create Pathways to Stability, Creativity, and Community

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Family Reunites and Forges a New Beginning

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Access Center Expands Services

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Art Partnership Celebrates Community

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Director's Letter: Shared Leadership

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We are delighted to bring you the Summer edition of our shelter program's newsletter. A special welcome to our new friends from the National Alliance to End Homelessness Conference in D.C. For those receiving our newsletter for the first time, our mission is to support the unhoused in rebuilding their lives through intentional community. We seek to provide not only a safe haven for those experiencing homelessness but also a nurturing community that fosters growth, dignity, and hope.

Staff Spotlight: Mellinda Poor, Navigating Toward Sustainable Lives

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The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a navigator as “one who navigates.” Further it defines navigate as “to make one’s way over or through.” At Community Supported Shelters, the role of the Service Navigation Manager is precisely that: to assist clients in making their way over and through challenges to a place of sustainability in their lives, including with housing. And you would be hard-pressed to find a better navigator than Mellinda Poor.