Landlord forces volunteers to close free AIDS shelter
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, September 17, 2012
An AIDS shelter opened by two young men in an apartment in central China's Henan Province to offer a free place for AIDS patients to stay was forced to be closed by the landlord, who feared catching the disease.
"We rented the apartment for AIDS patients and lived with them to demonstrate that the disease wouldn't be spread in normal daily life. But sadly, we cannot even persuade our landlord to accept the idea," said Cheng Shuaishuai, 22, one of the two volunteers.
Cheng told Shanghai Daily that they quit their jobs and rented the apartment in mid-August near a hospital in Henan's Zhengzhou City with money they earned by collecting empty bottles on the streets.
Cheng and his friend Cao Xiaodong wanted to cut the patients' expenses since they could take a shower and sleep there when receiving medical treatment at a nearby hospital, he said.
But after local media reported that more than 10 AIDS patients had lived in the apartment free of charge in the past month, the angry landlord immediately terminated the lease and asked them to leave.
"He ... refused to compensate us for breaking the contract," Cheng said. "He insisted that we should move away immediately and said he would repaint the walls and disinfect every corner."
The two volunteers are now looking for a place. But Cheng said he dare not tell landlords that the patients have AIDS.
Cheng said they decided on anti-AIDS charity work because they used to live in Xincai County of Henan, where some poor villagers sold their blood illegally using unclean needles and got the HIV virus. They started a microblog campaign to encourage people to help by collecting bottles.
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