so many of us have lost loved ones and most of our friends and while it may be that we have a home or apt or whatever there will come a time when we’re just tired of the loneliness, the games, tired of feeling unwanted, unloved and not needed, a burden to people who could care less about who we are let alone what we are; and we will wonder what the long term will be for us….are we destined to sit alone in a room and just fade away unwanted and uncared for?
no
safe haven house is a place where no one never has to feel alone, it does not matter who you are so long as you cause no harm to anyone else
Safe Haven House is in the White Mountains of Arizona. Andy emailed me and described his goal to bring together men that are poz and form a family that nothing can ever break.
Now that the reality of Safe Haven House has passed from dream to incubation it will be necessary to nurture its potential by finding grants or other funding until it is self sustaining through membership and other sources of revenue including membership dues.
Please help us by clicking on the links on these pages. You don't have to buy anything but all proceeds from AdSense clicks will be dontated to Safe Haven House so don't be cheap! Click until you have carpal tunnel syndrome! OK, may be once or twice is enough.
Andy says every new dawn brings a ray of hope that today will be the first day of sharing with a family created with unconditional love and support that grows and nurtures and provides care for one another through life's beautiful journey. I say that day has already come. And let's make sure that journey is fun too!
2007: It was a typical January day in Lima, Peru; the sky overcast from clouds caused when the cold wet Humboldt Current smashes into the hot dry weather of the Peruvian desert. We were visiting Pachacamac just south of Lima to see some pyramids. My partner, John, didn't feel well about half way through the tour and sat the rest out.
Three months later John was dead from liver cancer and I was lying in bed with our old dog watching the cat giving him a tongue bath. And I wondered what would happen when I got sick. Who would feed them, take Boomer out. My animals were spoiled but not rotten. I never felt more vulnerable in my life. I started doing the math and realized I was screwed but I also had a feeling there were plenty more like me out there. I built a website called FullerBerry.org which married a world without need, as described by Gene Roddenberry, with the directions for creating that world as described by Buckminster Fuller. It went something like this:
TEXT: The Average Social Security check is $1000. IMAGE: A 1000.00 Social Security check.
TEXT: This is what you get for $1000 per month. IMAGE: A cardboard box.
TEXT: If you got six of you together, this is what you could get for $6000 per month. IMAGE: Image of a happy group of people making smores over a fire pit on the lanai by their pool.
TEXT: Maybe it’s time to rethink the commune. IMAGE: Dancing naked hippies.
I turned 54 this year. I realized that I had, at that precise moment, spent half my life HIV positive and was still kicking. My family dead, my friends dead, it had been three years since my long time partner passed and here I was still alone and still sticking my tongue out at the demon seed that poisons my being and which continuously works at stealing away my future. And I just won’t let it.
The old fear is back and I thought about Andy as I had so often over the last year or so. And last week, again, I saw the email and it suddenly occurred to me that I had spent years thinking about a project like this and I could spend another few doing the same thing or I could actually do something about it. Andy calls his solution, Safe Haven House. I want to join him. I need to get my employer on board.
I have a wonderful job that is secure even in this terrible economy and yet the opportunity of a lifetime is at hand, to join Andy and help build its success while securing my own future as well as Andy's. Retirement based on the stock market or real estate market is not a sure thing though getting old and sick is. And long term security is now as or more important than short term security. These are the conditions in which these decisions have to be made. If it were five years from now this would probably be a no brainer, but it's today.
So here begins the Haven Project blog. How do 2 souls, 2000 miles apart bring together their visions to create a family living with joy and love and support without having a diet comprised of Friskies and Meow Mix.
Well here’s proof distance no longer matters; now all I have to do is figure out how I'm going to get to Arizona to help Andy get his idea off the ground:
