Denver Gentrification Also Affects People with HIV

“First, the gays move in,” goes the gentrification formula. “Then the artists, then the developers.” Queer families and individuals have often chosen to live in places straight people have shunned, but to say that gays spruce up the hood oversimplifies the story and writes out the queer people displaced by gentrification, including queer people without papers, queer people of color, low-income gays, and people living with HIV.

This last group is one of the most vulnerable to gentrification in Denver, particularly as the metro area faces a 27,000-unit gap in affordable housing. While HIV treatment has improved and more HIV+ individuals can live longer and function normally, the fact that people with HIV can blend in also means that their unique challenges — not only affordable housing but also access to care — may be invisible, even to the queer community.

“The face of AIDS we used to have is gone,” says community member Bruce Chopnik, 56, citing Kaposi’s sarcoma. “Just because we don’t see it, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

Tim Imborski, 63, was forced to relocate due to his fixed income. “They turned my apartment into condos, and I was unable to find an apartment I could afford in Capitol Hill. I don’t have a vehicle, so it made my life even tougher. I had to rely on my friends to pick me up and take me to the doctor.”

Tim, who was diagnosed with HIV in 1986, lived in Capitol Hill from 1981–2010, when he moved to Aurora. He returned to Capitol Hill two years later when he found a subsidized apartment through DCAP. “I wanted to live in Capitol Hill to be near the community. Everything is convenient — the doctor’s office, the grocery store, the hospital. I’m on oxygen, so I don’t really get out except to the doctor and the grocery store.”

But, Bruce counts himself lucky to be walking distance from the Eastside HIV Primary Care Clinic in Five Points. Back in October, however, he was unable to walk anywhere when horrific housing conditions — black mold, exposed electrical wires, and open plumbing — contributed to his deteriorating health. “If you live in shit, you feel like shit,” Bruce explains, “When the city inspector condemned the place, they asked me, ‘Why did you live here?’ and I answered, ‘I couldn’t make the [housing] change while I was trying to get better.’”

Given the conditions of Bruce’s rented home, his medical providers at Eastside insisted he stay in respite and then a hotel until he could find suitable, affordable housing.

The Eastside HIV Primary Care Clinic was funded through the Ryan White CARE Act of 1990 and serves over 500 low-income patients with HIV, 74.1 percent who are below 100 percent of the Federal poverty level, and 19.8 percent who are below 200 percent. With Five Points’ home values up to half a million, however, many of the clinic’s patients have been forced to the margins of the city, far from where they receive care. 

“Traditionally, it was 1/3, 1/3, 1/3: African American, Hispanic, white,” explains Dr. Josh Blum, director of Denver Health HIV Primary Care Clinic. “But patients who have historically lived in the neighborhood are being displaced.” Due to these shifts, Denver Health has opened HIV clinics in Southwest Denver and Lowry to reach an increasingly scattered population.

“Ten years ago, it was not like this,” Dr. Blum explains. “If you talk to my social worker, we have patients coming in every day saying, ‘I can’t find a place to live.’ We have chronically homeless and unstable-housed people living with friends. We are going west and east because our patients are west and east.”

The biggest challenge facing low-income people with HIV is that new housing is not frequently available. Section 8 housing lottery waitlists are incredibly long. Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS (HOPWA), though a crucial resource during the AIDS crisis, have had dramatically less turnover as AIDS mortality rates have dropped. Low turnover is a good thing, but it also means that fewer HOPWA homes have become available, even as rents rise throughout the city. Finally, though the city requires new development to have a percentage of affordable units, many people with HIV are on fixed incomes and unable to qualify for these units.

“They’re really discounted,” Dr. Blum acknowledges. “But you have to prove that your income is 2.5 times the monthly rent, which disqualifies most of my patients right off the bat because they are on fixed incomes of $700/month.”

Bruce found his current place by walking on foot up and down neighborhoods near the clinic, recognizing that a similar search would not have been possible when he was debilitated months earlier. “It’s not that the only affordable places to live are in Aurora or Arvada,” Bruce says, “but that there are more affordable places to choose from there. If you want affordable housing, you have to put in the work to find it. That means being the first person to contact the lessee, and the best way to do that is on foot.”

Access to care is vital for people with HIV, but it’s also key for all populations disproportionately affected by the disease. While Denver has committed to 90-90-90 treatment targets by 2030, Colorado Health Institute explains that, “without access to care, people are less likely to know their HIV status and less likely to receive proper treatment if they are diagnosed, both of which increase the risk of transmission.” Denver Health is to be applauded for relocating its clinics to serve a broader geographical range, but the City and County of Denver must recognize how gentrification and rising rents have reduced access to care by scattering members of the queer community, making them more vulnerable to HIV-infection, sickness, poverty, and homelessness.

Members of the queer community can still support the most vulnerable among us. For some, that could mean providing your friends or acquaintances a place to stay while they search for housing near health clinics. For others, it may mean donating to health and housing organizations to ensure they can continue providing services around the city. For landlords, it means not raising your rents just because the market says you can. For all of us, it means advocating for City and County of Denver policies that recognize, value, and protect the interests of all citizens.