Formation | 1990 |
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Founders | Keith Cylar, Charles King, Eric Sawyer and Virginia Shubert |
Type | NGO |
Purpose | End homelessness and AIDS |
Website | housingworks.org |
Housing Works is a New York City-based non-profit fighting AIDS and homelessness. The charity is well known for its entrepreneurial businesses including a chain of thrift shops, which supports efforts to end AIDS and homelessness where they are based. They are also known for their social justice activism. As of March 2017[update], the organization has served 30,000 clients.[1]
In 1990, four members of the AIDS activist group ACT UP—Keith Cylar, Charles King, Eric Sawyer and Virginia Shubert—decided to dedicate themselves to serving one of New York City’s then-most neglected populations: the tens of thousands of homeless men, women, and children in the city living with HIV and AIDS.[citation needed] The activists called their new group Housing Works because they believed that stable housing was the key to helping HIV-positive people live healthy and fulfilling lives and to prevent the further spread of the virus.[2]