Serra Project Set to Take Over Closed Ventura AIDS Hospice

Christopher House, an AIDS hospice in Ventura that shut down last May, should get a second chance, perhaps as early as this spring.

Monday night, the City Council approved an agreement transferring operation of the hospice to the Los Angeles-based Serra Ancillary Care Corp.

“We’re really pleased that a qualified organization has come forward to run the facility,” said Loretta McCarty, who negotiated on behalf of the city. “I know the Christopher House board is pleased as well.”

Christopher House, a 12-bed facility at 856 E. Thompson Blvd. for low-income people with AIDS, opened in downtown Ventura in 1994. But the facility fell behind in its fund-raising efforts--racking up a shortfall of about $25,000 a year, said Trisha Davis, board member and sister of Christopher Dye, in whose memory the facility is named.

Then last May, the state Department of Social Services found numerous deficiencies in the facility’s care plan, ranging from not assisting ill residents to brush their teeth and take showers, to not providing them with enough to eat. Faced with the possibility of losing their license, the directors shut the hospice.

Representatives of the Serra project--named after Father Junipero Serra, who founded numerous missions along the California coast--have negotiated for months with the Christopher House board of directors.

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The Serra project currently operates three homes in Los Angeles County: Casa de la Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles in the Pico/Crenshaw section of Los Angeles, for men only; Casa Portiuncula in Long Beach, for women only; and Casa de la Madona y El Nino, serving mothers and their children.

Unlike the Los Angeles clinics, the Ventura facility will not receive any money from the county or the city.

Serra will acquire the Christopher House property and will assume two loans from Los Padres Bank--one for $60,000, the other for $240,000--and take on the costs of maintenance and operation.

The name will change to Christopher’s Place, to reflect the change in management.