Travis Supportive housing options will be the outcome of research being conducted by IU Northwest in partnership with two social service providers.

The Indiana Housing Finance Authority (IHFA) awarded faculty members $10,000 to create and conduct a study addressing housing issues facing homosexual men and transgendered individuals living with HIV in northwest Indiana, which includes the counties of Lake, Porter and LaPorte. The data collected and evaluated will serve as a tool to help community organizations, the IHFA, housing advocates, providers and planners in making decisions about housing needs and, ultimately, improve the quality of life for these underserved individuals.

Denise Travis, director of the Division of Social Work, serves as the project director. Faculty member Anne Wells serves as the principle investigator, and faculty member Manoj Pardasani serves as a research assistant. Two current students also will help conduct research.

Wells and Pardasani will work together in planning methodology and designing a survey, as well as figure out a timetable for completing the analysis and evaluating the data. The project needs to be completed by the end of July.

Travis said she is proud to be directing this project, because it brings increased awareness to the housing issues faced by members of these special populations, and the project will identify problems in the current system.

“Increased awareness of the issues facing these special populations will help us in terms of policy, planning and programming,” Travis said. “There are holes in the system, and we will be able to document where they are.”

Brothers Uplifting Brothers (BUB) and the Aliveness Project of Northwest Indiana are the two community-based organizations partnering with the faculty members. Each organization provides HIV/AIDS health education programs and services, including testing and support groups, for the populations being studied. According to Pardasani, who works closely with the program, BUB has a housing program called Safe Space, which is the only one of its kind in northwest Indiana. Safe Space helps people with HIV/AIDS locate housing, provide short-term and long-term rental assistance, and transportation between housing units and medical offices, as well as other needs related to securing safe and adequate housing.

After the study is completed, both organizations will have an opportunity to use the research in providing more effective services. Tammie Morris, executive director of the Aliveness Project, looks forward to the results. She said she knows what some of the issues are from listening to her clients’ stories, but she needs more to work with than that.

“We will be making decisions based on their needs, not just on our perception of those needs,” Morris said. “When they come here, we want to be ready and better equipped to serve them.”

Both of the organizations help people who are not only living with a deadly disease, but also who face discrimination and stigma from the larger community, and are often separated from family members.

“HIV/AIDS is a stigmatizing issue for communities, add to that sexual orientation, homophobia and discrimination against this group,” Pardasani said.

Pardasani has a personal interest in seeing that the research be used successfully by organizations in the area. He is a former director of A Better Place, an agency in New York City that provided supportive housing to individuals who were homeless and HIV positive. He said supportive housing meets diverse needs of individuals from those who get caught up in the cycle of the temporary shelter system.

“Shelters provide a temporary roof. They do not prepare people to live independently in our communities. BUB is an example of a group doing something to address this issue. They have received grants to research how to best deal with the mental and physical needs of their clients,” Pardasani said.

Seeing that the social work faculty members are working from their hearts is one reason why Morris enjoys the help the Aliveness Project gets from the university. She said that many social organizations in the area do not have the money or technical expertise to design the type of extensive research it takes to better understand the needs in the community.

“They are really starting to do good things in the community. Here they are really using their time, putting in the man-hours and actually working on committees within our organizations, not just supplying their name. That makes a big difference,” Morris said.