Atlanta AIDS center faces "financial disaster"

Atlanta's Absolute Wellness-Brandon Ross Abernathy Community Center, opened in 1999 as an organization offering such free services as massage therapy, acupuncture, physical therapy, and chiropractic care to HIV patients, is facing a financial crisis that threatens to shutter the agency, the Southern Voice reports. A $50,000 grant pledged by a pharmaceutical company to help with the center's recent relocation has failed to come through, and a clerical error last year resulted in the rejection of a federal grant application and the loss of an expected $360,000 in funds. "We're facing a financial disaster," center executive director Sherry Meltz told Southern Voice. The center currently serves about 3,800 clients and has an annual budget of nearly $300,000. The loss in funding threatens to close the agency, Meltz says, "and it's crucial we remain open because we offer services no one else does." Meltz is currently serving without pay as the agency's director.