The Quiet Frontline of HIV Care You’re Not Hearing About

In Atlanta, cranes paint the sky, and condos rise from where history once stood. The city pulses with growth: new restaurants, tech hubs, and shiny developments promising a better future. But just beyond the rush of progress, another story quietly persists. It’s the story of Atlantans living with HIV/AIDS, individuals and families navigating more than a diagnosis. For them, every day is a fight not just for health, but for housing, stability, and the dignity to live fully.

Though often missing from headlines, the crisis is clear: Atlanta holds one of the highest HIV diagnosis rates in the country. And for those most impacted, Black, low-income, often unhoused, access to care starts with having a roof over their heads. That’s where Status: Home steps in. For over 35 years, the organization has served as a refuge and foundation, offering permanent housing and wraparound support for those too often left behind. In a city building up, Status: Home is building equity, one front door at a time.

HIV Crisis

The HIV epidemic hasn’t disappeared; it’s just fallen off the radar. In Atlanta, where HIV incidence rates rival those in some developing nations, the crisis is still unfolding in silence. It thrives in the gaps: in underfunded clinics, in unaffordable housing markets, and in neighborhoods long redlined and ignored. The face of HIV today is not who the public expects, and that disconnect is costing lives. Here, the virus hits hardest where resources are thinnest and stigma runs deep.

Treatment exists, but without housing, it’s out of reach. You can’t take daily medication without a place to sleep. You can’t prioritize doctor visits when survival is the bigger concern. That’s why Status: Home meets the moment with more than medicine; it delivers stability. Through permanent housing and wraparound support, the organization doesn’t just respond to a health crisis; it rewrites the conditions that allow it to endure.

Real Work

Meeting the needs of people living with HIV/AIDS requires more than services. It requires systems built on empathy, equity, and experience. Poverty doesn’t show up alone. It brings chronic illness, mental health struggles, and years of compounded trauma. Truly serving this population means designing care that doesn’t just treat symptoms, but restores dignity and choice. That’s the real work, and it’s the work Status: Home does every single day.

At Status: Home, housing is permanent, support is personal, and residents are never reduced to a diagnosis. Wraparound care includes everything from trauma-informed counseling to healthcare access and family support. But above all, it starts with respect. Many arrive carrying years of loss and stigma; here, they’re met with consistency, care, and the belief that they are more than their history. They are seen fully as neighbors, parents, and people with the right to thrive.

Bold Moves

In 2023, Atlanta’s oldest HIV/AIDS housing organization turned a page. Formerly known as Jerusalem House, it reintroduced itself as Status: Home, a name grounded in identity, belonging, and the idea that no one’s worth should be defined by a diagnosis or a temporary circumstance. The rebrand was more than cosmetic; it was a statement. By stepping away from religious affiliations and into a name that speaks directly to its mission, Status: Home made its purpose clear: care without condition, housing without judgment.

But names aren’t the only things they’ve reclaimed. In just two years, the organization purchased five apartment buildings, planting long-term roots in a city where rent is outpacing reality for many. In one of those neighborhoods, a street still bears the name “Dixie.” Now, Status: Home is working to rename it Ullman Court, honoring co-founder Evelyn Ullman. It’s not just a tribute, it’s a powerful rewrite of space, history, and who gets to belong. Bold isn’t always loud. Sometimes, it looks like putting a name on the map that never should’ve been erased.

Key Truths 

The lessons emerging from Status: Home are not confined to Atlanta; they are blueprints for any city wrestling with inequality, health disparities, and housing injustice. HIV is not a closed chapter, especially in the South, where stigma and silence still carry more weight than science. And while treatment exists, it’s ineffective without the foundation of housing. Healthcare can’t begin in an ER or a waiting room, it begins with a safe place to sleep, to heal, to exist. That’s where the real shift in outcomes begins.

Status: Home brings more than shelter to the table; it brings a reimagining of what care can look like. Under the leadership of Maryum Phillips, a Black woman CEO and Chair of the National HIV/AIDS Housing Coalition, the organization offers both professional expertise and community-rooted wisdom. It’s not just about housing people, it’s about restoring dignity, investing in healing, and showing that real change happens when those most impacted are also leading the charge.

Our Why

At Status: Home, the work is never just numbers or programs; it’s people. Staff members witness it daily: someone arrives with nothing but a plastic bag of belongings, burdened by a diagnosis and years of being pushed aside. What happens next isn’t a miracle; it’s what occurs when compassion is backed by structure. With stability, care, and time, that same person begins to reclaim their story, moving from crisis to confidence, from surviving to truly living.

These stories aren’t rare, they are the rhythm of the work. They remind us what’s possible when housing is treated as a human right, not a privilege. As the city of Atlanta rises, Status: Home remains grounded in one powerful question: Who gets to rise with it? Their answer lives in every key handed over, every door opened, and every life restored. This is what home makes possible.

To learn more about how Status: Home is transforming housing into healing for Atlanta’s most vulnerable, visit statushome.org. Whether you’re a policymaker, partner, or concerned neighbor, there’s a role for everyone in building a city where no one is left behind.