Protest: Post Office Won’t Deliver Skid Row Mail

Group filed federal lawsuit last month asserting postal service legally must deliver mail directly to SRO building residents, most of whom are low-income and formerly homeless individuals

Housing advocates and mobilizers affiliated with AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) and its Housing Is A Human Right (HHR) and Healthy Housing Foundation (HHF) divisions will protest in downtown Los Angeles Wednesday March 6^th targeting the United States Postal Service over its repeated refusal to deliver mail directly to individual residents of single-room-occupancy buildings, many of which now serve as primary and permanent residences for people.

In 2008, the California Legislature, recognizing that SRO residential properties increasingly function as permanent residences for many people, passed a law requiring landlords to have an individual, locking mailbox for each tenant. AHF complied with the law and installed USPS-approved mailboxes for all the tenants at the SRO buildings that AHF owns and operates.

For several years and on many occasions, AHF informally asked the USPS to deliver mail properly to its Skid Row properties and even filed a formal administrative claim with the USPS to get a change in delivery to no avail.

AHF filed suit against the Postal Service last month. The case is Shawn Jenkins and AIDS Healthcare Foundation vs. USPS, Louis DeJoy & Six … (Case No. 2:24-cv-00885).

In 2017, under its Healthy Housing Foundation division, AHF began purchasing and repurposing SRO hotels to address the escalating homelessness and affordable housing crises. Today, AHF provides more that 1,400 SRO housing units as primary and permanent residences to low-income tenants in 13 multi-unit SRO buildings across Greater Los Angeles.

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the world’s largest HIV/AIDS healthcare organization, provides cutting-edge medicine and advocacy to more than 1.9 million individuals across 45 countries, including the U.S. and in Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, the Asia/Pacific Region, and Eastern Europe. To learn more about AHF, visit us online at AIDShealth.org, find us on Facebook, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, and subscribe to our AHFter Hours podcast.

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