Countrywide Forecloses On Bakersfield AIDS Group Home; Residents Face End Of Month Boot

The Bakersfield Californian reports:

• Bakersfield AIDS Project faces a Jan. 30 deadline to vacate the east Bakersfield house it rents for use as a group home and community center. The non-profit social service organization was asked to leave at the end of the month after the trust that owned the 102-year-old house defaulted on its mortgage.(1)

***

• Three men live in the house full-time, and dozens of others drop in regularly for social services and group meals. “It’s really a community here,” [director Audrey] Chavez said. “A lot of HIV-positive people don’t have the support of their families, so this is their surrogate family.”

For more, see Foreclosure crisis: AIDS Project up against deadline to leave house it rented.

(1) Reporedly, the bank, Calabasas-based Countrywide Financial Corp., said Friday it had “no idea” the house was a group home for AIDS patients. The company might have been willing to work with the organization if anyone had contacted Countrywide, but no one did, said spokeswoman Jumana Bauwens, according to the story.