User:Catbiscuits/howardbrown

Mission
Howard Brown Health is an organization that focuses on providing health care for people within lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer community in several areas throughout the city of Chicago. Besides healthcare, they provide a variety of services such as housing, jobs, food, education and more.

Howard Brown is in charge of the Broadway Youth Center and the Brown Elephant Resale shops. The Broadway Youth Center helps LGBT youth who are experiencing homelessness or are struggling with housing. They provide healthcare, social services, and GED/Education for those who need it. Brown Elephant is a resale shop whose profits go towards helping to cover healthcare for patients at Howard Brown who can’t afford it.

History
Howard Brown was founded in 1974 by the Chicago Gay Medical Students Association to respond to the rising rates of STDs among gay men and eventually developed its services to help patients during the AIDs crisis. It was named after Dr. Howard Junior Brown, former New York City Health Services Administrator and founder of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Timeline
In 2004, Howard Brown Health had HIV testing within the Chinese communities that were considered at risk. They sent a few representatives to look after patients for more or less than two weeks. This took place at the bars and brothels within the Zhejiang Province in China’s southeast coast. Like the other Howard Brown facilities, they provided various services for their patients in need.

In 2014, Howard Brown Health took part in the National Gay Blood Drive. This was their way of calling out to the federal government to lift the ban on gay men donating blood, while promoting HIV screenings. The ban would have prevented a whole group of people who would be healthy enough to donate blood. After a while, this ban was shortly lifted, but there was a new rule initiated that allowed gay men to only donate blood if they have not had sexual relations for a year or longer.

In 2015, Howard Brown Health provided free legal services and advice once a week with the help of the Legal Assistance Foundation and the AIDS Legal Council of Chicago.

In 2017, Howard Brown Health expanded its facility in Rogers Park, which was their sixth location. This establishment provided more amenities for the LGBTQ community with its 12 exam rooms, large community space, and a clinic that would help with sexual and reproductive issues. This would have helped an additional 5000 new patients while creating 19 full time jobs. Howard Brown Health was able to purchase and renovate their new facility with a $5 million dollar loan and a $1.75 million dollars in additional aid from the IFF.

In May of 2017, Howard Brown Health collaborated with Mayor Emanuel, UIC, the and Chicago Public Health Department to help patients get access to HIV treatment services while saving funds and reaching as many people as possible.

In 2019, Howard Brown Health opened Broadway Youth Center that focused on helping young LGBTQ people who have experienced homelessness or housing instability. Like the other establishments, the Broadway Youth Center also included a variety of services such as HIV testing, educational services, food, and etc.

In September 2019, an empty apartment building in Lakeview was demolished and renovated for an additional Howard Brown Health Center that took $2 million dollars. The building developers, Panoptic Group, had sold the building to Howard Brown Health unfinished, which resulted with them suing the company’s principle, Bogdan Popvych for $1.9 million dollars and won.

In early 2020, Howard Brown Health made plans to continue the expansion of their organization to the North and South sides of Chicago to be completed by 2024. In the North, they planned to move their Broadway Youth Center to the Lakeview area. In the South side, there were three clinics but they would eventually offer new services in the coming years by working alongside with the nonprofit, Pride Action Tank. The South side of Chicago has usually had a lack of resources for the LGBTQ community and has gotten $15 million dollars from the state to fund their centers, along with the $15 million they had previously set aside for their own endeavors. Their overall plans would allow them to see 45,000 patients per year instead of 30,000 patients. Overall, Howard Brown Health has been able to maintain a gross revenue of $137.5 million dollars during their fiscal year at the end of 2019.

It is expected that Howard Brown Health would buy and occupy the Little Jim’s Tavern by 2022 in Boystown, which is where the oldest gay bar is located. This establishment should be able to contain about double the capacity of patients while providing aid to an additional 2000 patients per year, in comparison to their initial facility on Halsted. The Little Jim’s Tavern facility would take up about 30,000 square feet and would likely cost $30 million dollars.

Finances
In 2010, the National Institutes of Health discovered that Howard Brown Health mishandled $3 million in grant funds since the year of 2006. The NIH then turned this issue over to the Department of Health and Human Services Office of the Inspector General. It was supposed to be used for their studies with HIV/AIDS, or the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study, which has been a part of their studies since the 1980s. They said that they were using their funds for the HIV and AIDS studies, but the government found that they were using the funds outside of the study, specifically for day to day expenses (2012). As a result, they had to turn over less than $1 million dollars to Northwestern University who had continued as the lead agent of these studies.

After the financial scandal, Howard Brown Health became financially unstable. If they were to close, more than 6000 patients would lose access to their main source of health care and other services. So, they launched a Lifeline Appeal with a goal of raising $500,000 in 50 days in order to keep its doors open.

In 2012, Howard Brown Health repaid multiple establishments after the financial scandal. This includes the federal government with $715,000, the Health Resources and Services Administration with $86,076, the CDC with $53,294, and  the National Institution of Health with $575,000. After their fundraiser, they were able to raise $650,000 within their 50 day goal, thanks to their donors.