Overview
After Hours Project, Inc. (AHP) is a community-based harm reduction program that, since May 2002, has addressed the continued spread of HIV/AIDS in predominantly low-income and minority neighborhoods. AHP’s founders and staff live and work in Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, East New York, and Brownsville, Brooklyn, and Ridgewood, Queens. AHP provides participants – primarily intravenous drug users, sex workers, and homeless people who have little or no regular contact with linkage to service providers – with a variety of health and social services, including syringe access, case management, and HIV counseling and testing after the traditional “9-5” working hours. AHP practices a street-based mobile and storefront approach that combines evidence-based models of service delivery with mobility, discreetness, and personal attention: effective methods for reaching people at the highest risk for HIV/AIDS. AHP adheres to a non-judgmental and non-coercive approach in providing services. AHP staff is successful because they are culturally and ethnically sensitive, linguistically competent, and invested in the neighborhood they serve.
