Impact Update
IN 2022, ALLIANCE FOR POSITIVE CHANGE CONSISTENTLY PROVIDED A PLACE OF WELCOME AND OPPORTUNITY FOR LOW-INCOME NEW YORKERS LIVING WITH HIV AND OTHER CHRONIC HEALTH CONDITIONS—DESPITE THE MANY CHALLENGES OF THESE TIMES.
The communities we partner with—primarily people of color, women, and LGBTQ+ people— have been disproportionately harmed by the pandemic, healthcare inequities, economic turmoil, and other adversities.
Alliance has stood with our community every step of the way—delivering on the promise of positive change with services and resources that equip people to navigate systemic inequities, access quality healthcare, and attain well-being.
We support each person’s aspirations for positive change through care coordination; treatment adherence support; HIV, hepatitis C, and STI counseling, testing, and referral; expedited linkages to medical care; harm reduction and recovery support; mental health services; supportive housing; housing placement; and more.
Our work addresses urgent issues: the opioid overdose crisis…attacks on lifesaving harm reduction services…a dangerously inequitable and underresourced healthcare system…hunger, housing insecurity, and lack of economic opportunity.
When COVID-19 struck NYC in March 2020, Alliance’s superb staff went into overdrive—
ramping up telehealth and other virtual services, making weekly check-in calls to our 6,000 core participants, and ensuring that all 800 people in our Pharmacy Access Program had uninterrupted access (via home delivery) to their HIV medications and other prescriptions. We maintained lifesaving in-person services like overdose prevention and safe syringe services, with guidance from local public health authorities.
On World AIDS Day 2020, we resumed some in-person services and by early 2022 had fully ramped up a combination of in-person and virtual services based on each participant’s preferences.
In 2023, we continue innovating and adapting to make sure every member of our Alliance family has the support to advance along their chosen pathway to positive change.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR PARTNERSHIP!
ALLEN ZWICKLER SHAREN I. DUKE Board Chair Executive Director/CEO
“Joining Alliance for Positive Change has been life-affirming. Alliance helped me find my purpose and become the best version of myself that I can possibly be. Alliance is a sanctuary.”
GABRIELLE ROBY, ALLIANCE PARTICIPANT AND PEER PROGRAM GRADUATE
Addressing Food Insecurity
Our Food and Nutrition Services (FNS) are a lifeline for food-insecure New Yorkers living with HIV and other chronic illnesses. Nutritious food helps our participants stabilize their health and focus on their positive change goals. Food prices rose every month in 2022, so we’re working to expand our FNS program, to be sure our participants have enough to eat and nutritious foods that support their health.
11,500+ meals
1,500+ pantry bags with fresh and shelf-stable foods
2,400+ food vouchers
Innovating for Economic Mobility
Alliance has leveraged three decades of expertise in Peer training and Peer-delivered services to launch an independent workforce development innovation called Path to Jobs.
This career readiness and job placement organization for New Yorkers who have been excluded from economic opportunity kicked off with a $1M startup grant from Representative Carolyn Maloney, Senator Charles Schumer, and the US Department of Labor; a $300K NYS AIDS Institute grant; and a $315K grant from Affinity Legacy.
Alliance continues our signature Peer training and paid internships, connecting our Peer graduates with Path to Jobs for job placement opportunities.
350+ people affected by HIV, hepatitis C, and substance use received Peer training, followed by paid Peer internships conducting prevention and harm reduction
30%+ of Alliance’s full-time staff are former Peers
Upping Our Advocacy Game
As a leading HIV and health organization, Alliance is active on over a dozen local, state, and national coalitions to push for equitable resources that promote the health of people living with HIV, people who use drugs, and other historically underserved communities.
We advocate for more Overdose Prevention Centers, expanded housing for people living with HIV, and paid positions for Peer workers
in health and community organizations. We successfully pushed our government partners to include community-based organizations like Alliance in New York’s COVID-19 response. And we continue our fight to protect Medicaid pharmacy benefits and the healthcare safety net in NYS to ensure that proposed Medicaid changes do not pit quality care against organizational sustainability.
Rising to the challenges of these times, Alliance for Positive Change lives up to our name in so many ways…
