Housing Works

Housing Works is a New York City based non-profit fighting the twin crises of AIDS and homelessness. The charity is well known for its operations, which have recently included outreach to Haiti after the 2010 earthquake.

In 1990, five members of the famous AIDS activist group ACT UP—Keith Cylar, Charles King, Gerri Wells, Eric Sawyer and Virginia Shubert—decided to dedicate themselves to serving one of New York City’s most neglected populations: the tens of thousands of homeless men, women, and children in New York City living with HIV and AIDS. The activists called their new group Housing Works because they believed that stable housing was the key to helping HIV-positive people live healthy and fulfilling lives and to prevent the further spread of the virus.

The organization runs a chain of twelve thrift shops, a bookstore, a catering company and a screen printing business as social enterprises to support their work and lower their dependence on grants and donations. They also provide health care and legal aid services. The group has satellite offices in Albany, New York and Brooklyn, New York.

The charity hired famous chef Michael Sherman as its catering chef for its bookstore cafe. The bookstore puts on a series of unique workshops; one in February 2010 focused on marketing some feminine hygiene products, another was an anti-love book talk, and yet another was a Tumblr talk. Past events have included a spelling bee for adults, and a "story time" for toddlers.

Housing Works is well known in New York City for its chain of upscale thrift shops. The New York Times frequently mentions the shops in its neighborhood reviews. Housing Works Thrift Shop is featured in Seinfeld episode 173, "The Bookstore". George is forced to buy a book from Brentano's Bookstore because he took it in the restroom. He then tries to donate it to Housing Works Thrift Shop and claim a $200 tax write off but the clerk at the thrift shop used to work for Brentano's so she recoginizes the book has been flagged that it has been in the restroom and runs him out of the store.

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