The UCSF Alliance Health Project (AHP) will host the 29th annual Art for AIDS auction on Saturday, Oct. 4. 2025! Art for AIDS is an annual charity art auction presenting the carefully curated works of local and national artists. All sales from the auction benefit AHP in providing free or low-cost mental health, substance use disorder and sexual health services to San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ and HIV-affected communities.
In 2025, attacks on immigrant rights, transgender people, and healthcare funding seem to increase daily. Those attacks are even more threatening to AHP’s low-income LGBTQ+ and HIV-affected clients who are trying to heal from homophobia, transphobia, racism, aging, isolation, income frailty, substance use, and psychiatric disorders. Many also struggle with housing instability and/or homelessness.
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UCSF Alliance Health Project Director Will Hua is one of several local leaders profiled by the Nob Hill Gazette and the San Francisco Examiner this month for PRIDE! Learn more about Will, his background, and how it influences his current work at AHP. We're also sending a special shout out to our dedicated staff member Jacey Marcella who also shares her story as a true testament to how AHP continues to make a difference in the lives of our community.
Read the full story at the SF Examiner.
Congratulations to our very own Director of Research Dr. Annesa Flentje and her team on their newly released manuscript published in “Health Psychology.” Their article “Differential Gene Expression in Response to AWARENESS: A Randomized Controlled Trial of an Intersectional Minority Stress Intervention,” looks at changes in gene expression in response to a cognitive behavioral intervention aimed at reducing the impacts of minority stress.
“This article stands as a reminder that when we help our clients cope with stress, we are likely changing the ways their bodies internalize that stress—down to the level of gene expression,” said Dr. Flentje. “Just an important underscoring of the work that AHP does every single day.”
The article was selected as the editor’s choice article for the issue, which means it is free to access. In addition to Dr. Flentje, AHP’s founder Dr. Jim Dilley, served as a contributor, and Dr. Katie Katuzny, AHP supervising psychologist, served as a therapist for many of the participants included in the study (related article co-authored by Dr. Katuzny can be found here).
Dear AHP Community,
A new year is a great time for us to take a moment and a deep breath (or several of both!) as we reflect on the previous year and look forward to the one in front of us. Rather than resolutions, I am personally an advocate of setting intentions that relate to your chosen values. For example, what does it mean for us to live life mindfully, to show up authentically, and to move forward with intention and purpose?
And how do we as a community navigate mindfully while holding the stress and uncertainty that 2025 may bring? Ensuring that our HIV-affected and LGBTQ+ communities and clients continue to receive compassionate care will always be paramount to our values as an organization. We hold this commitment fiercely.
The initiation of a comprehensive strategic plan is one way that AHP is being intentional with our commitment. AHP recognizes the need for ongoing growth and transformation in the setting of an ever-changing mental wellness and healthcare landscape. Our clients’ needs, along with the structures and policies that influence their lives, have changed. Local and global conflicts and oppressions have influenced our perspectives and our lived experiences. Innovations to care delivery are needed, and individual and systemic impacts on mental health warrant thorough re-examination. At AHP, we carry out this…
Dear Friend,
As we approach the end of another year, we are celebrating a significant milestone: 40 years of Defying Odds at the UCSF Alliance Health Project. This moment is not just a celebration of our past achievements, but a call to action to ensure our vital work continues.
Founded in response to the social crises of homophobia, AIDS phobia, racism and misogyny; remember “Haitians, Whores, and Homosexuals?” The UCSF Alliance Health Project emerged as a signal of hope for those living with and at risk for HIV/AIDS. Our mission has always been clear: to address the psychosocial and mental health needs of those affected by HIV/AIDS while combating the stigma that often isolates them from receiving compassionate client-centered care.
Over the past four decades, we have expanded our services to meet the evolving needs of our community. What started as an HIV/AIDS-focused project has grown into a comprehensive program that provides not only mental health care and HIV treatment but also sexual health services, training and education for healthcare providers, and vital research aimed at improving health outcomes.
Our commitment to holistic approach to care…
Dear Friends,
It might sound like it, but I am not over dramatizing when I say, “you save lives.” I know this because you saved mine. Imagine it’s 1988 and you’re at the Alliance Health Project sitting across from an AHP HIV test counselor. Everyone you know who has been diagnosed with AIDS is dead or dying. You KNOW you don’t have HIV. You’re just there to support a friend.
Those resources, that support, that direction saved my life.
DK Haas
Artist, Survivor, Recent Retiree
And then the counselor looks at you, and delivers your death sentence:
“Your HIV test results are positive.” Remember it’s 1988.
That death sentence saved my life.
I have no idea what that counselor said, only that I felt such care, compassion, and presence that I will never forget her. I left AHP armed with the resources, support and direction I needed to tackle the rest of what was certain to be, my very short life.
Those resources, that support, that direction saved my life.
I doubled down on my recovery and became engaged in my physical and mental health. I even attended an HIV support group for gay men in recovery— they were so welcoming. I utilized those resources I was given like the lifeline they were.
Later, a couple of AHP trainers came to my…
Dear Friends,
The mission of the UCSF Alliance Health Project is just as important now as it was 40 years ago – and it rings a little differently today as we look to the future.
Since 1984, in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, AHP has been a bedrock of advocacy and care for the HIV and LGBTQ+ communities. In times of stress and vulnerability, AHP demonstrated our resilience. In moments of struggle, AHP leaned in and came out stronger than ever.
This year has brought about several milestones and developments for AHP, including the celebration of our 40th anniversary, several changes to AHP leadership, and a wonderfully engaging 28th annual Art for AIDS event. The year has also brought about many challenges – escalating costs of doing business, continued restructuring of operations in the post-pandemic hybrid workforce frontier, and repeated fiscal health risks posed at HIV and LGBTQ+ nonprofits in San Francisco; further, changes in local and nationally elected government officials and their subsequent policy reforms can add to feelings of uncertainty.
And, with and for our community, we persist – and persevere. We must and we will. As we close out our historic 40th anniversary celebration and the theme of “Defying…