After Hours Project, Inc. (AHP) is a community-based harm reduction program that, since May 2002, has addressed the continued spread of HIV/AIDS in the predominantly low income and minority neighborhoods where AHP’s founders live and work, Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant, East New York and Brownsville, Brooklyn and Ridgewood, Queens.
AHP provides participants – primarily IDUs, sex workers and homeless people who have little or no regular contact with service providers – with a variety of health and social services, including syringe access, case management and HIV counseling and testing after traditional 9am to 5pm working hours.
AHP utilizes a street-based mobile and storefront approach that combines evidence-based models of service delivery with mobility, discreetness and personal attention: effective methods for reaching people at the highest risk for HIV/AIDS. AHP adheres to a non-judgmental and non-coercive approach in providing services and ascribes to a philosophy of “reaching clients where they’re at.” AHP staff is successful because they are culturally and ethnically sensitive, linguistically competent and familiar with the history of the neighborhoods they serve.