AHF’s 2020 Rose Parade® Float Entry Offers “Hope for the Homeless”

For the ninth year in a row, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF)—this year, with its affiliate organization, the Healthy Housing Foundation—will take part in the Rose Parade with a float highlighting some of the organizations’ innovative solutions to address the homeless crisis in Los Angeles, throughout California and across the nation.

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88-year-old Herbert Butler, a formerly homeless veteran now residing in one of AHF's Healthy Housing Foundation hotels, will ride on AHF's float in the 131st Rose Parade on New Year's Day 2020. (Photo: Business Wire)

MEDIA AVAILABILITY with AHF FLOAT ROSE PARADE RIDERS at FIESTA PARADE FLOATS:

Media availability will take place on Friday, December 27, 2019 with AHF float riders in the 2020 Rose Parade^®

AHF’s entry in the 131^st Rose Parade presented by Honda is titled “Hope for the Homeless.”

The float focuses on AHF’s Healthy Housing Foundation and its work over the past several years to address the homeless crisis in Los Angeles and across the nation. There are now nearly 60,000 homeless individuals in the 88 cities that comprise Los Angeles County. Nearly 130,000 individuals are homeless throughout California, accounting for one quarter of the nation’s homeless population.

Riding on AHF’s ‘Hope for the Homeless’ float will be one of AHF’s heartwarming Healthy Housing Foundation success stories: Mr. Herbert Butler, an 88-year-old formerly homeless veteran, who will ride with Ms. Nicole Johnson-Farley, JWCH Wesley Health Care Center ED Hospital Homeless Coordinator, who earned Butler’s trust on the street bonding over music and persuaded him—after nearly 20 years of living on the streets in Hollywood—to move into the Baltimore Hotel in one of Healthy Housing Foundation’s repurposed SRO hotel rooms in Downtown Los Angeles.

Herbert Butler: A Healthy Housing Foundation Success Story

Herbert Butler lived on the streets of Hollywood off and on for the past two decades (Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood, near Wilcox, outside the Staples office supply store). Butler served in the military during the Korean War (1950-1954), but because he spoke French, was stationed for parallel operations in Germany.

Butler, an avid amateur pianist, long resisted going to shelters (for myriad reasons known best to him), preferring his life on the street. However, one ritual remained sacred to him: several times a week he traveled from Hollywood to Union Station to wait his turn for the chance to play--and entertain harried commuters--for 20 minutes or so on the community piano in the train station’s waiting room.

His case manager Nicole Johnson-Farley, from JWCH Wesley Health Center and Kaiser Permanente, worked hard to earn Butler’s trust on the street, bonding with him over a shared musical connection: her grandfather (who died when she was just two years old), was the famous alto sax jazz musician Captain John Handy, who Butler followed and deeply admired.

In October 2019, Farley was able to connect Butler to AHF’s Healthy Housing Foundation and, working with the HHF team, successfully placed Butler in AHF’s Baltimore Hotel, a 1910 single-room-occupancy (SRO) hotel on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles that AHF has repurposed for homeless and extremely-low-income housing.

Inspired by Mr. Butler’s story, his service to our country and his passion for music, AHF recently obtained a secondhand mini baby grand piano and placed it in the lobby of AHF’s King Edward Hotel, directly across the street from the Baltimore Hotel, where Butler resides. Now, Mr. Butler, and other musically inclined residents of AHF’s hotel residences, can play piano to their hearts’ content.

And in a fitting tribute, AHF obtained the rights to play one of Captain John Handy’s songs: “Joe Avery’s Piece,” for the music accompanying its ‘Hope for the Homeless’ Rose Parade® float on New Year’s Day.

AHF’s Healthy Housing Foundation is part of a larger community-based effort to address the exploding housing and homelessness crisis in Los Angeles.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the largest global AIDS organization, currently provides medical care and/or services to over 1.3 million individuals in 43 countries worldwide in the US, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, please visit our website: www.aidshealth.org, find us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/aidshealth and follow us @aidshealthcare.

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