The Shelbourne House in Miami Beach's Art Deco District, which provides 24 studio and one-bedroom units for low-income people with HIV/AIDS, recently celebrated its 10th anniversary.

When the People with AIDS Coalition first approached the Miami Beach Community Development Corp. to help coordinate an HIV/AIDS housing effort, MBCDC was thinking in terms of short-term leases. But since opening in 1996, Shelbourne has seen its clients obtain better social and medical care and live longer, healthier lives.

"I was a dying man when I came to Shelbourne," said a 51-year-old resident. "I dieted and exercised; I listened to the advice and guidance they gave me," he said, "And look at me now."

Shelbourne does not provide clients with health care but shows them how to access health, employment, and counseling services.

The project, at 710 Jefferson Ave., required an initial federal boost of $500,000 and another $1.5 million for renovations to rehabilitate the former hotel, said Roberto Datorre, MBCDC's president. It continues to operate with support from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Miami Beach Housing and Community Development Program, the Miami HOPWA Housing Program, and Miami-Dade Office of Community and Economic Development. MBCDC is opening 12 additional units for AIDS clients in December at the Westchester, a former apartment building on Drexel Avenue and Fifth Street.

Single residents and two-person families must earn no more than $31,300 or $35,750 per year, respectively, and 30 percent of that income must be used to pay rent, which usually is less than $500 a month, said Daniel Spring, MBCDC's vice president.

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