Our Mission
DOORWAYS improves the quality of life of people affected by HIV, illness, and poverty, advancing their stability and well-being through housing, health, and empowerment services.
Effective July 1, 2024, as part of our 2024-2028 Strategic Plan.
This statement was updated to reflect expanding services to meet growing need.
Services Based In Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
DOORWAYS was founded with respect for diversity (D), the right to equal (E) access, and the goal to include (I) all in a community of compassionate care – DEI. Through an equity lens and without discrimination, DOORWAYS serves a widely diverse population at the intersection of poverty, homelessness, and illness from HIV as well as other chronic health conditions associated with deprivation. Our clients are invisible and ignored by society. With housing and 360-degrees of services, we seek to reduce the inequities, disenfranchisement, and isolation that anchor them in hardship and destitution, blocking their pathway to a more self-directed life in which they may feel empowered and meaningful. Housing combined with a matrix of resources blended delivered through one-to-one care coordination offers the stabilization needed to encourage the first step: consistent adherence to an HIV medical regimen. Advances in HIV treatment plans can now render the virus undetectable. Viral suppression means improved individual health to support the journey to independence and opportunity. Viral suppression also renders the HIV virus untransmittable, stopping the spread of HIV and opening the door to the end of HIV for future generations!
The Beginning
In the 1980s, people diagnosed with the frightening new disease called HIV/AIDS were abandoned by families, shunned by society, and reduced to poverty. Many died desperate, alone, and homeless. In 1988, faith leaders from the Catholic Church; a Jewish synagogue; the United Church of Christ; and the Episcopal, Lutheran, Methodist, and Presbyterian Church communities united with area civic leaders to form DOORWAYS to offer compassionate hospice care to all, without discrimination, allowing those with AIDS to die with dignity. As medications evolved, DOORWAYS responded by shifting its focus from caring for the dying to rebuilding lives for the living.
A New Face of HIV
As HIV became treatable, people with access to stable housing, healthcare, food security, income, employment, education, and community support (the Social Determinants of Health–SDOH) were able to manage the illness, living a near-normal life. Among people living a legacy of poverty, whose SDOH environments are collapsed, HIV rose to epidemic levels. The face of HIV shifted to an invisible population: the poor and homeless, a vulnerable and disenfranchised community ignored by society. Please see our Client page for more information.
Growing Client Needs
Over the years, staff witnessed worsening client conditions. As public support for mental health services decreased and patients were released from care and as the opioid epidemic accelerated, DOORWAYS clients were arriving with serious and untreated mental health battles and substance use challenges. We needed to expand capacity but were out of space. As new cases of HIV continued rising each year, and numbers of people achieving undetectable status was stagnating, something had to change.
Our Response
After years of research and analysis with multitudes of experts and consultants, DOORWAYS was ready to expand to meet growing need. In 2018, the agency launched a $40M expansion project to construct the new Jefferson Avenue Campus. Opened in 2022, it combines housing with extensive ONSITE services to remove access and navigation barriers, so clients may begin building the SDOH to achieve the stabilization needed to manage their lives and their healthcare, opening doors for independence and opportunity.
DOORWAYS continues as the only agency in the region dedicated to providing housing to individuals living with HIV and their family members.
Founded to care for those dying alone and homeless.
With medical advances, we shifted to rebuilding lives for the living.
DEI Efforts Also Extend to Agency
Board of Directors, Volunteers,
and Employees
The diversity of our clients is reflected among our Board of Directors, volunteers, and employees. A board matrix assures representation of different ethnicities, genders, religions, and backgrounds. Clients serve terms on our board alongside professionals and clergy.
Of the 300+ volunteers, many come from
corporate LGBTQ+ groups or are individual volunteers who identify with some aspect of our client population: family with or themselves
with HIV, prior homelessness or unstable housing, poverty, LGBTQ+, etc.
It’s paramount that the diversity of our clients is reflected in our staff. We honor and appreciate each employee for the differences they bring to the table. Nearly two-thirds of our employee community represent minority demographics, including a variety of ages, religions, disabilities, races, sexual orientations, and gender identities. Some of our staff are people living with HIV.
The agency President & CEO, Opal M. Jones, is a person of color. In fact, she was selected by the St. Louis Business Journal as a 2018 Diverse Business Leader We provide gender-neutral restrooms, allow staff to include their personal pronouns on their email signatures and business cards, provide same-sex spouse benefits and include them in our paid parental leave policy.
These differences not only make DOORWAYS unique, but they create an environment that enables everyone—clients, volunteers, and employees—to succeed as the person they are meant to be.
- Pellowski, Jennifer, et.al. “A pandemic of the poor: social disadvantage and the U.S. HIV epidemic.” Am. Psychol. 2013 May-Jun. 68(4)197-209. Web accessed.
- Aidala, PhD, Angela, et. al. “Housing Status, Medical Care, and Health Outcomes Among People Living With HIV/AIDS: A Systematic Review.” Am J Public Health. 2016 January. 106(1):e1-e23.