A Sanctuary in South Los Angeles

“None of us have to do everything,” says Gerald Garth, “if all of us do something.”

The AMAAD Institute, which stands for Arming Minorities Against Addiction and Disease, which Gerald Garth is the executive director of, is doing something and so much more. Located in the heart of South Los Angeles, AMAAD is providing culturally affirmative, peer-led health, housing, and social services for Black LGBTQ+ individuals at the intersection of addiction, HIV, housing instability, and re-entry from incarceration.

Formally launched in 2015, AMAAD was built to care for the whole person because founder Dr. Carl Highshaw saw that nothing else would be truly successful. Recovery didn’t hold without a bed. A bed didn’t hold without a job. A job didn’t hold without sustenance. So what started 11 years ago as a recovery program now provides housing, behavioral health, HIV care, meals, youth diversion, and care planning that often begins inside the jail, before release. All of it in Watts, because it’s crucial to be where those in need can get to you. “Folks had come to believe that they could only receive quality care and services outside the communities in which they lived and socialized,” Garth says. “It was important that we were able to show that there is care, authenticity, integrity, joy, and beauty, right where folks are.”

The Care Begins with Language

Garth was a writer, an actor, and an activist before joining AMAAD. He knows the power of words – which is why the foundation of care at AMAAD begins with language. Nobody comes to AMAAD as a “client.” “We reference them as ‘participants’ because we are active participants in everyone’s care,” says Garth. The intake form is a “care” application and move-in day is called “welcome home.”

The flagship pillar of AMAAD’s programs are their residential houses – houses that provide stability, hope, community, a vast array of social services, and a care plan for a future. Each house is run by a manager with “lived” experience, an extension of their successful peer-led model. Each house is named for a “virtue” – Resiliency, Dignity, Abundance – and those moving in get care kits, a room and bathroom of their own, a case manager and a plan that ends with an apartment, a job, and a paycheck. As Garth says, their inclusive, intentional programs live on a platform of humanity.

The need for their free services is staggering. Each month AMAAD serves roughly 300-500 participants and tries never to turn anyone away. But that goal continues to be a challenge to meet. Nearly all of AMAAD’s funding is government money, and one federal grant has already ended without renewal. Yet AMAAD makes sure no one goes without care. Participants and their needs always come first. 

The success of their model can be seen in the lived experiences of those they help. One woman came to AMAAD after incarceration with dreams of becoming a therapist. She is now AMAAD’s first director of behavioral health. Others return as ambassadors to welcome the next person home. “What peer-led programs do is really give people their voice back,” says Garth. “They also give people their humanity back.”