Project Open Hand Expands Eligibility for Services

A San Francisco-based nonprofit agency that provides meals to people living with AIDS and other diseases is expanding its eligibility for services.

Project Open Hand, founded almost 30 years ago near the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, announced this week that it's allowing people with acute symptoms of diseases that include diabetes and heart disease to pick up groceries and meals in addition to receiving meals at home.

Previously, picking up food was only available for people who had HIV or breast cancer.

"In a way, there's nothing new there," Kevin Winge, the agency's executive director, told the Bay Area Reporter during an interview Tuesday, July 8.

The agency has changed eligibility criteria before, he noted.

"We realized there's a greater need we haven't been able to address," Winge said. "We're especially interested in targeting those diseases where we know nutrition will make a significant difference" in wellness.

The new services have been available through the agency's wellness programs, which assist critically ill residents of San Francisco and Alameda counties, since June 1 and were officially announced Tuesday.

Last fiscal year, the nonprofit served about 8,000 clients. In the current fiscal year, which started Tuesday, July 1, POH expects "a significant increase in the number of critically-ill clients it serves, particularly home-delivered meals for this vulnerable population," the agency, which has a budget of $10.1 million, said in a news release.

The nonprofit is also conducting a study called Food = Medicine in partnership with the UCSF School of Medicine in an effort to show good nutrition's ability to "markedly improve" health and well-being for people living with critical illness and lead to reduced medical costs.

As it updates its eligibility criteria, Project Open Hand is contacting current clients "to determine how to best handle their needs," the agency said in its news release. "In some cases this may mean that a small number of existing clients who are in good health," including some who're living with HIV, "will no longer want or need nutrition services."

The agency will implement the new eligibility criteria during clients' next re-certifications. Re-certifications are conducted every six months.

Winge stated his agency would "work closely with affected clients" to get them to other resources, including the Senior Lunch Program for people who are over 60. In addition to meals, the agency also provides services like nutritional counseling.

Since the new eligibility requirements were introduced in June, five clients who re-applied for service were no longer eligible, out of a total of 3,754 active clients.

Winge noted that people with HIV and AIDS are living longer and may be susceptible to the same diseases that face other people who are aging.

Clients' conditions can change, added Winge, and they "may no longer be a great fit for home-delivered meals" because they don't need them.

"By continuing to expand who we serve, we are able to access new funding opportunities, which can strengthen our agency," he added in the news release.

Changes Cause Discomfort

Not everyone has welcomed the changes that Project Open Hand has instituted over the years.

In a Thursday, July 3 post to Craigslist, Alan Weathers, 64, of Oakland, asked, "Has anyone else with HIV or [hepatitis] C had difficulty being approved for services at POH? I have received meals there for the past 10 years and every year the recertification/renewal processes get stricter and more complicated. What started out as an organization to help [people living with AIDS] has now morphed into a 'we can help everybody' venue ...which largely excludes gay men with HIV/AIDS."

In an interview with the B.A.R. , Weathers, a registered nurse who works as a contractor and is living with HIV and hepatitis C, said he used to pick up meals and groceries from the nonprofit, but he chose to cut the groceries service after POH said he had to make a choice "a couple years ago."

Asked about Weathers' post during the interview with the B.A.R. , Winge responded, in part, "We certify all of our clients every six months. Some clients won't qualify for services. That's absolutely true," he said. But "we're actually going back" to agency founder Ruth Brinker's original work of helping people who are the "sickest."

As for being "all things to everyone," Winge said, "There's no way we could do that."

He reiterated that the agency is trying to remain sustainable.

HIV-specific funding sources are drying up, Winge said, and "this has been a trend for years."

"If we don't look at how we remain relevant, we're not going to be able to serve anyone living with HIV in the future," he said.

In the agency's news release, former client Mark Ebelt, who's living with HIV, was supportive of the nonprofit. Ebelt decided to stop receiving help from the agency months ago as his health improved, according to POH.

"I know that I will need help from Project Open Hand in the future, but for now - for me - I want to know that people who are sick and hungry and really need these meals are getting them," he stated.

For more information, visit http://www.openhand.org