We recently received very exciting news from Becky Bicknell at Housing Resources Group:
Kenyon House has earned
LEED Platinum certification through the
U.S. Green Building Council's LEED for Homes rating system. Kenyon House is the first project in the State of Washington to attain LEED for Homes Platinum certification for affordable housing and only the second in the entire country! The project received grant funding from
Home Depot and
Enterprise Green Communities to support green building efforts, including the LEED certification process.
Specific green building elements of Kenyon House include: the preservation of many tall, mature trees, which offer natural beauty as well as solar shading in the summer; orientation of the building to take advantage of passive solar heating and
Seattle's Public Health Department has found evidence that the only rapid HIV test licensed to screen both saliva and blood (OraQuick) was not as accurate as the manufacturer claimed -
it missed 8% of 133 people who were later found to have HIV. These results raise a question for all jurisdictions using oral testing: is reaching a wider range of people with testing worth it, if the results may be flawed?
Since the introduction of OraQuick in 2004, spikes in false positives have been reported at least twice, causing alarm in San Francisco in 2005 and halting use of the test in New York City. But in some ways the Seattle results are more troubling. False positives can be re-tested with rapid blood tests immediately, but false negatives represent missed opportunities to diagnose people who
As Manager of HIV/AIDS Housing Initiatives, I am proud to be a part of Building Changes' legacy work and ongoing commitment to addressing the housing needs of people living with HIV/AIDS. In addition to participating in our local HIV/AIDS housing and services work, I was elected to the board of directors for the
National AIDS Housing Coalition (NAHC) earlier this year; I am the fourth Building Changes staff to hold this distinction. NAHC works at the federal, state, and local levels to educate and inform advocates, service providers, the business community, and policy makers about the funding priorities that impact housing options for the most vulnerable. Our involvement with NAHC is a great testimonial to our many years of experience and successes working in the AIDS housing field,
