New Homes, Hope For Aids Patients -- Complex Built With The Ill In Mind

Stepping into his new apartment for the first time, Bill Hall walked right to where the building's designers expected he would: the windows.

Although the First Hill apartment is small, the light and the views of downtown skyscrapers from large, double-paned windows add cheeriness and vitality.

Those qualities - cheer and vitality - are at the heart of the Cal Anderson House, a 24-unit apartment building opening this week for low-income people with AIDS.

The project, sponsored by the Northwest AIDS Foundation and financed largely by a federal Housing and Urban Development grant for housing for the disabled, will be dedicated at 9:30 a.m. Thursday. An open house will be held that day until 3 p.m.

Residents will move in by the end of the month.

The $2.6 million, five-story building at Broadway and East Terrace Court is not a hospice or hospital. It's a home.

In each feature, artists and designers have sought to emphasize that feel, such as the quiet private garden in back, complete with some raised planting beds more easily reached by residents whose disabilities make bending over difficult.

A curtain of newly planted bamboo will help separate the building's front from busy Broadway.

In the building, the needs of people living with a progressive disease have been accommodated in various details. Bathrooms have extra shelf space for medications; entrances are wide enough for wheelchairs. Near each tub and toilet are places where grab-bars for the disabled could be readily installed.

Begun last summer, the project was well under construction when the announcement was made in May that it would be named for state Sen. Cal Anderson, the state's only openly gay legislator. Anderson, invited to speak at the dedication, has AIDS.

The building's location is close to downtown and Capitol Hill, with a bus stop in front and medical facilities close by.

Three weeks ago, Hall, living in a group home in South Seattle, had to make a 50-minute bus ride to Harborview Medical Center when a new medication caused him severe body aches and shortness of breath.

In his new home, he'll be just three blocks from Harborview and four blocks from his doctor.

Hall, 42, is an Alaska native who moved to Seattle in 1972 to attend the University of Washington.

He learned he was HIV-positive in 1986 and was diagnosed with AIDS in 1992. Illness forced him to leave his job as assistant director for an alcohol-treatment program for Native Americans.

Residents of the Cal Anderson House must be able to live independently, unlike those at the 35-bed Bailey-Boushay House in Madison Valley, where most need assistance in living.

At the Cal Anderson House, occupants will pay rent set at about one-third of their income for one-bedroom, 518-square-foot units. For Hall, that will be $210 out of his monthly Social Security check.

The building is owned by Open Door Ventures, a nonprofit corporation created by the Northwest AIDS Foundation. It will have a live-in manager and be run by the Plymouth Housing Group, formed by Plymouth Congregational Church.

Hall said the building's strongest feature will be the bond among people with AIDS, the chance to compare observations and advice, to share joys and sorrows. "To have the support of others who are going through what you're going through makes a big difference," he said.

The project was paid for by a $1.48 million HUD grant, $792,000 from the city, $250,000 from the state and a $150,000 fund-raising commitment from the Northwest AIDS Foundation.

Andrea Akita, housing-services manager for the Northwest AIDS Foundation, said the project brings to 310 the number of housing units available in the Seattle area for people with AIDS, though 600 are projected to be needed by 2000.

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