In 1990, Thomas Clodfelter was enjoying the annual barbecue festival in his hometown of Lexington, North Carolina. Wandering through the vendors, Clodfelter noticed the American Red Cross.
“I had never donated blood before,” he said. “And something was like, ‘Okay, let’s do something good for a change in your life.’”
Clodfelter donated his blood and didn’t think anything of it after that, he said. But the decision ended up saving his life.
Soon, the Red Cross informed Clodfelter that his blood had tested positive for HIV, a virus transmitted via blood and other bodily fluids, usually during sex or through needle-sharing.
“This disease…It takes you down—mentally, physically, and emotionally,” Clodfelter said, “And that’s something society doesn’t take the chance to really understand.”
After being diagnosed, Clodfelter packed up and moved to Greensboro to be closer to Triad Health Project, a nonprofit promoting sexual health and justice.
“If it wasn’t for this agency, I wouldn’t be sitting here with you today,” he told The Assembly.
Triad Health Project started in 1986, a few years after the HIV/AIDS crisis became part of the national consciousness. The group began as a grassroots effort among 14 friends.
“They wanted to make sure that their friends who were dying were not dying alone,” said Adriana Galdo Adams, CEO and strategist for Triad Health Project, “They wanted to see them die with dignity.”
AIDS is the advanced, final stage of HIV infection. Over the decades, much about how the disease is treated and its outcomes has changed. With proper treatment, an HIV diagnosis is no longer the death sentence it once was. Many living with HIV now have long, healthy lives with the use of antiretroviral medications.
But many hurdles remain. Among them, Adams said, is getting and keeping housing.
‘People Deserve a Beautiful Space’
“Housing is one of the number one things that we were coming up against, as there is a limit of safe, affordable housing in Guilford County,” Adams said. “If you are unhoused, where do you even keep your meds? How do you access services? How do you keep a job?”
That’s why Triad Health Project is partnering with Affordable Housing Management, Inc., a locally-based nonprofit organization, to redevelop a nearby property for their clients. Since 1970, AHMI has developed more than 2,000 housing units and offers in-house property management and maintenance.
“Our focus is really to not only create really high-quality housing, but to care for the people who live in it,” said Anna Blanchard, AHMI’s director of mission partnerships and real estate development.
The pair has set their sights on an old motel property a few buildings down from Triad Health Project’s headquarters on Summit Avenue. The dark red, U-shaped brick building faces the busy thoroughfare, the windows are boarded up, the walls flecked with graffiti. Trash litters the yard’s dry, patchy grass.
But a digital rendering of the site’s future imagines a revamped new apartment complex with flower beds, plenty of greenery and community gathering areas — a serious upgrade to the blighted spot just blocks from the Dunleath Historic District.
More than 90% of Triad Health Project’s clients’ emergency financial assistance requests are for housing, said Alisha Giggetts, the organization’s chief operations officer. That includes utilities, mortgages, and rental assistance.
“I’ve had to fight for housing,” Clodfelter said in Triad Health Project’s conference room, sporting his signature dyed crimson beard.
“I’ve had to fight for basic needs to survive—income, medical insurance … you name it,” he said. “But that’s the norm of living with HIV.”
“What [people] fail to realize is that people like myself living with HIV, we’re hurting, mentally,” said Clodfelter, “We’re focused on this new disease that we’ve been given. We’re trying to stay alive.”
AHMI plays an important role, because for Triad Health Project, taking on the responsibility of their clients’ housing management could raise ethical and organizational concerns.
“What I was not interested in is us becoming a landlord of any sort,” said Adams, “I am very clear about what our mission is. We are not a housing organization.”
You don’t want the person who’s talking to you about your lease to also be the person walking you through your medical issues, or even just personal things that are happening in your life, said Blanchard.
The building currently has 20 small rooms, Blanchard said. AHMI will knock down some walls to create 10, so there’s ample space for each tenant, and each unit will have a full kitchen. It’ll be called Fourteen Friends Place, after the founders of Triad Health Project.
At most, Fourteen Friends Place’s tenants will be charged $760 per month, Blanchard said, a far cry from the $400 a week the motel charged years ago when it was still operable. They’re hoping to acquire permits in the next 6-8 months, she said, and then construction should take roughly the same amount of time.
AHMI is being granted nearly $3.03 million to redevelop the property—$125,580 from the county in HOME funds and more than $2.9 million from the city of Greensboro in Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) funding, a federal program that falls under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
“Some might look at the price tag and think, ‘Wow, this is a large sum to spend on a low number of units,’” Adams said. “But we want it to be a beautiful space, a space that you or I would want to move into as well. People deserve to have a beautiful space.”
Overcoming Stigma
The money is being spent exactly as it was intended to, Adams explained. A lot of HOPWA dollars are sitting unspent by cities such as Durham, which has $1.3 million still waiting to be committed to projects. In 2023, HUD sent out a memo to grantees, reminding them to withdraw their funds in a timely manner, saying that “spending delays and/or unspent funds can leave HOPWA-eligible households vulnerable to housing instability and homelessness and can be interpreted to signal a lack of need for these resources.”
“I’m really excited to see what this can lead to throughout the city and county, for other projects to be developed with other HOPWA funds or other HUD funding,” said Giggetts, “And making sure that the money is spent on the people that it’s meant to serve, and not just sitting and sitting and sitting.”
“Because it is theirs,” Giggetts said, “and they deserve to have it, and they deserve to live with dignity, just as anyone else would.”
It’s a great, centralized spot, Adams said, making service delivery to their clients easier.
“We want long-term housing,” Adams said. “I think one of the best moves was making these spaces larger so that folks would feel like it’s not a transitional space for them.” There will also be an outdoor community space and courtyard.
There’s a lot of stigma that surrounds being unhoused, Adams said, and an additional layer that people living with HIV and AIDS face when they’re looking for housing.
AHMI and Triad Health Project want to build something beautiful for them.
“I have particular people in mind when I think about these spaces,” said Adams. People who have been coming to their day center’s family-style meals for years, people whose medical power of attorney rests with Triad Health Project.
People who think of the organization as more than a service provider, Adams said.
“We’re their chosen family,” she said. “This is a space for them to really have people around them, because we have folks who have real fears about what aging looks like for them.”
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the previous name and use of the building in the story. It has been updated.
