[This article appears in the January/February 2020 issue of Boston Spirit magazine. Subscribe for free today.]
Throughout most of 2020, the Boston Living Center, founded in November 2019, is celebrating its 30th anniversary.
In the words of a member at the Boston Living Center, “The BLC is a place where I belong, not just as a virus, but as a long-term survivor. Not as a patient, but as a poet. The sharing in groups rewards my mind/body with a reason to live fully each day. The prescription to take five doses of the BLC is the only med without the side effects, copay, or stigma.”
During the height of the AIDS epidemic, a few gay men formed a supper group that met on Monday nights around kitchen tables to cope with social isolation, discrimination, helplessness around losing their friends to a virus now known as HIV. In the fall of 1989, the group formalized to become the Boston Living Center (popularly known as the BLC) and opened its doors at the then YMCA building on Clarendon Street. By 1995, having outgrown its initial space, the BLC moved to 29 Stanhope Street, where it is today, with significantly expanded services for the HIV+ community. The idea was to offer a one-stop shopping model to include daily meals, support groups, education programs and holistic health in a nonjudgmental environment.
After 30 years, the Boston Living Center, a part of Victory Programs since 2012, is still a sanctuary and a home away from home for more than 1,200 HIV+ people each year. Thanks to the advances in medicine, many of the early members are still alive and regularly access services at the BLC.
Every day at the BLC is different. The day starts with members dropping by for breakfast before participating in a daily support group. At lunch time on Tuesday through Friday, the dining room transforms into an energetic place when members come for a hot meal, meet with friends, check in with the staff around a variety of issues including housing, benefits, medication, health appointments or even vent about a recent breakup. Afternoons at the BLC offer a variety of educational and social activities including art workshops, nutrition and cooking classes, advocacy training or Friday “flicks.” Wellness workshops range from yoga, reiki, and acupuncture to evidence-based multi-week programs focused on health education and medication adherence around HIV.
Since its founding, access to nutritious meals with friends and peers has been at the heart of all of the services at the BLC. Monday night dinners are particularly popular when the guests are served meals in a restaurant style—a tradition that has continued since the early days.
The menus are prepared by the staff dietician, keeping in mind the wide diaspora of ethnic backgrounds among the membership and the changing demographic. The meals are prepared daily and on-site with the help of community volunteers, annually serving over 32,000 meals. For the majority of our members, the BLC is the primary or secondary source of food week after week.
Having trained HIV+ staff members at the BLC is particularly reassuring to members as they are better able to communicate some of the challenges related to disease management. The staff often become like family offering a level of comfort that can be equally reassuring to the newly diagnosed members and long-term survivors.
After three decades of service to the HIV community, the BLC still embodies the original ideals by providing a welcoming and nonjudgmental environment to members, where they can belong, while continuing to offer progressive, low-threshold programs that reflect the changes in the needs of the HIV population.
In 1989, James McVoy and Mel Reicher, the BLC’s founders, had a hope that the BLC will close its doors because there will not be a need. But the need is still here, and the BLC doors are still open. After 30 years, the BLC still remains an icon in the HIV community, empowering those living with HIV, while remembering those who have been lost to the disease, in its hallways and hearts of many.
Interested in volunteering at BLC? Click here.
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