AHF’s Rose Parade® Float Spotlights Housing Solutions to L.A.’s Homeless Crisis with “Another Day in Paradise”

In Global Featured by K Pak

AHF’s float honors one of its housing success stories: four of seven members of the Smith family will ride on AHF’s ‘Another Day in Paradise’ float highlighting AHF’s Healthy Housing Foundation’s work.

Since 2017, the Healthy Housing Foundation has purchased three single room occupancy (SRO) hotels on L.A.’s Skid Row as well as the former Sunset 8 Motel in Hollywood, repurposing them to create nearly 600 units of housing for extremely low-income individuals and families and those previously unsheltered.

LOS ANGELES (December 27, 2018) For the eighth year in a row, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF)—this year, with its partner organization, the Healthy Housing Foundation by AHF—will take part in the Rose Parade® with a float focusing on the homeless crisis in Los Angeles and some innovative ways which AHF and its Healthy Housing Foundation are deploying to address and improve the situation.

AHF’s entry in the 130th Rose Parade® presented by Honda is titled ‘Another Day in Paradise.”

The float focuses on AHF’s Healthy Housing Foundation and its work over the past year to address the homeless crisis in Los Angeles and across the nation.  There are now 55,000 homeless individuals in the 88 cities that comprise Los Angeles County, including 677 homeless in Pasadena.

MEDIA AVAILABILITIES with AHF FLOAT ROSE PARADE® RIDERS at FIESTA PARADE FLOATS:

Media availabilities will take place on Friday, December 28 and Sunday, December 30, 2018 with AHF float riders in the Rose Parade®

WHAT: MEDIA AVAILABILITIES—with AHF’s Rose Parade® Float Riders

WHEN: Friday, December 28, 2018, 8:00 am – 10:00 am

WHERE: Fiesta Parade Floats 16016 Avenida Padilla, Irwindale, CA 91702

Also: (Media avail. Continued)

WHEN: Sunday, December 30, 2018- 10:00 am – 11:30 am

WHERE: Fiesta Parade Floats 16016 Avenida Padilla, Irwindale, CA 91702

WHO: Travis SMITH

Cionna SMITH

Alex THOMPSON, (14)

Arianna THOMPSON, (12)              

Riding on AHF’s ‘Another Day in Paradise’ float will be Travis and Cionna Smith as well as Alex and Arianna Thompson, two (2) of their five (5) children, a family originally from West Virginia. The Smith’s currently live at the Healthy Housing Foundation’s Sunrise on Sunset (SOS) motel on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood and will be moving to permanent supportive housing in the Koreatown area after the new year.

AHF’s also float invokes the ‘paradise’ that many see Southern California to be: beaches, sunsets, the ocean—all within the subtropical climate celebrated in Rose Parades® for more than a century—as well as the glamor and excitement of Hollywood. The float also poignantly invokes a stark contrast with ‘Another Day in Paradise,’ the iconic song Phil Collins in which he recounts the tale of a man’s encounter with—or avoidance of—a homeless woman:

“Another Day in Paradise”

She calls out to the man on the street
‘Sir, can you help me?
It’s cold and I’ve nowhere to sleep,
Is there somewhere you can tell me?’
 

Collins implores listeners not to simply turn a blind eye to homelessness:

Oh think twice, it’s another day for you and me in paradise
Oh think twice, ’cause it’s just another day for you,
You and me in paradise, think about it

AHF’s Healthy Housing Foundation is part of a larger community-based effort to address the exploding housing and homelessness crisis in Los Angeles.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over one million individuals in 43 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us@aidshealthcare.

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