About Marty's Place

Marty's Place Affordable Housing Corporation is a housing co-op for low-income people living with HIV/AIDS in San Francisco, more affectionately known as Marty's Place. Marty’s Place is a nonprofit organization and 501(c)3 in California.

Marty’s Place is not a program or supportive living organization but a member-based, democratic, social housing model for independent living with shared community spaces. Memberships and participation are required for tenant occupancy.

History: Marty's Place was founded in 1993 by Richard Purcell, a Franciscan friar who came to San Francisco to care for his brother Marty who was dying from AIDS. After Marty's passing, Richard continued using the property to house care for low-income people with AIDS until he passed in 2011. Richard Purcell left the property to Dolores Street Community Services specifically to house people living with HIV/AIDS, and today Marty's Place is fulfilling that mission as Marty’s Place Affordable Housing Corporation.

Today, our networks extend through various, local AIDS service organizations and communities in San Francisco, and our friendships are global.  

The current housing market in San Francisco has become unaffordable for many long-term, HIV-positive San Franciscans, who deserve  to have affordable housing and access to a high standard of medical care.  Marty's Place is a solution as a tenant-based social housing model with self-management.

For information about our Board of Directors, please continue to scroll below.

Contact us:

Marty's Place Affordable Housing Corporation

Email: mpahc@mpahc.org, Fax: 415-500-2224

On social media:

Facebook:  facebook.com/martysplacesf

Twitter:  @MartysPlaceSF

Board of Directors

Michael RouppeT, member director.

Michael is a Bay Area native and moved to San Francisco in 1992. He has lived throughout California and Smedjebacken, Sweden, and was in San Francisco during the mid-80s as the AIDS crisis continued to peak.  Michael got involved with the community response to HIV/AIDS through Queer Nation and ACT UP (AIDS Coalition To Unleash the Power) in the early '90s.  In 1993, he went to the March on Washington D.C. and held the first red ribbon around the U.S. Capitol building with ACT UP chapters from around the country before paying tribute to the memories of those we’ve lost at AIDS Memorial Quilt on display at the National Mall.

His experience as a tenant advocate began back in the '90s with the Alamo Square Neighborhood Association, and his work continued as a housing counselor at the Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco from 2014 through late 2015 and has worked on numerous ballot measures to strengthen tenant rights in San Francisco.  During that same time, Michael served on an HIV & Aging workgroup through the Department of Aging & Adult Services to represent the needs of homeless street populations and make policy recommendations for San Francisco to implement its Getting To Zero strategy.  He has also served for one year on a planning committee for Honoring Our Experience groups and retreats through the Shanti Project, facilitated groups on the retreats, and has worked with Let's Kick ASS (AIDS Survivor Syndrome). 

In 2015, Michael raised $3,600 for HIV services on the AIDS/LifeCycle and rode 545-miles on a mountain bike from San Francisco to Los Angeles as a homeless person, and to raise awareness about Marty's Place a month before it opened.  He has worked with the David Lynch Foundation to emphasize wellness while exploring the impact of Transcendental meditation (TM) for people living with HIV/AIDS, and has spoken to national audiences and international press about his experiences, improved health, and transition from the streets while using TM as a guidance tool.

Michael is a trained group facilitator with the Positive Living for US (PLUS) weekend seminars through Positive Force at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and has spoken publicly about his experiences as a person living with HIV/AIDS since 1997. From 2000 to 2010, Michael worked as a peer educator at City College of San Francisco doing rape and domestic violence prevention through Project Survive for classes on campus.  His background includes a major in psychology with emphases on Ethnic/Minority Cultural Studies, Women's Studies, LGBT Studies and social justice coursework.  He is a certified Sexual Health educator and worked at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation through their Syringe Access Services program until late 2016.  

Michael was the first elected President for MPAHC in January 2015 and is serving his sixth term as a strong advocate for more affordable housing for people living with HIV/AIDS in San Francisco.  In March 2016, he was elected to the Board of Directors for the San Francisco Community Land Trust and served one term as a Lessee representative until 2018.  In December 2018, he was awarded the POZ Top 100 Award for his work at Marty’s Place. In September 2020, he was one of a number of World AIDS Conference for 2020 delegates who co-drafted The San Francisco Principles 2020 to renew the calls for empowerment and self-determination from the Denver Principles (1983) for PLWHA to have a direct role in the decision-making involving their lives, and to recognize housing as healthcare with affordable housing and universal healthcare as human rights. In his spare time, Michael enjoys organizing tenants to fight anti-tenant property owners in San Francisco and winning. He currently co-chairs the Community Outreach Committee and Finance Committee for Marty's Place.

VACANT, MEMBER DIRECTOR

Bio coming soon.

PAUL AGUILAR, MEMBER DIRECTOR

Paul A. Aguilar is a fourth generation native San Franciscan. He had just turned 18 when the first Centers for Disease Control/CDC reports came out on June 5, 1981 describing a mysterious disease killing gay men. Two months later, his friends started dying. Seven years later, in 1988, he sero-converted.

Paul began volunteering at the AIDSWalk to Volunteer Coordinator at the San Francisco Center for Living where he discovered there was a name for the type of volunteer work he was doing: Development. Having won the James S. Johnson Scholarship, Paul attended and completed the University of San Francisco’s Institute of Non-Profit Management in 1998.

Paul has worked for the Mayor’s Criminal Justice Council’s “Safety Network Program,” coordinating seven community organizers throughout San Francisco by assisting community stakeholders in addressing public safety and crime prevention at the neighborhood level.

In 2000, Paul became part of the original implementation team of San Francisco’s Proposition 36 (a.k.a. Substance Abuse Crime Prevention Act) which was the only county in the entire state of California to run the program through its health department to address substance use disorder as a public health issue. From there he spent several years at the International Institute of San Francisco overseeing the coordination of several state funded programs to help immigrants and refugees; in particular, Bosnian refugees and other asylum seekers.

Currently, Paul is a co-author of The San Francisco Principles 2020, has had three essays published nationwide addressing the needs of long-term survivors of HIV, and is currently working on a documentary called “From AIDS to Covid: an Intergenerational Journey.” When asked to describe himself in three words, he replied: Artist, Activist, Advocate.

KEVIN ORTIZ, NON-MEMBER DIRECTOR.

Bio coming soon.

ALEXANDRA ARNERI, NON-MEMBER DIRECTOR