AIDS Facility to Open Next Week
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The first residential care facility for people with AIDS in the west San Fernando Valley will open next week in a five-bedroom house in West Hills.
The new facility was established by the Homestead Hospice and Shelter, the agency that built the only other home for AIDS patients in the Valley, the Pioneer House in Van Nuys. The new home has been named the Frank Cala House after a Valley AIDS activist who died of the disease.
The Cala House can provide beds to up to six people.
The cost of residential care at the Homestead houses is based on a sliding-fee scale, which changes with the patient’s ability to pay, said Executive Director John Maceri. “No one is turned down for lack of money,” he said.
Residential care facilities, which differ from traditional hospices, are designed to house patients who are diagnosed with AIDS and show symptoms. Hospices, on the other hand, are intended as places where terminally ill patients can live out their last days.
Maceri said that four people--three of them Valley residents--already have signed up to live at the Cala House.
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