AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) continues its decade-long tradition of taking part in the Rose Parade® with a float celebrating Charlie Chaplin on the 100th anniversary of his classic 1925 film, “The Gold Rush.”
AHF’s float both honors and celebrates Chaplin and his iconic “Little Tramp” character—arguably America’s most famous (albeit fictional) homeless person—and spotlights some of AHF’s innovative solutions to help address the affordable housing and homelessness crises in Los Angeles, throughout California, and across the nation.
Chaplin’s classic film lends well to AHF and its Healthy Housing Foundation messaging on affordable housing and homelessness. Set during the Alaska gold rush (but shot mainly on Hollywood sound stages), Chaplin gets the gold and the girl. After sending mixed signals, an initially reluctant Georgia (Georgia Hale) dances the night away with Chaplin, welcoming New Year 1925 by the end of the last reel.
AHF’s Healthy Housing Foundation is part of a larger community-based effort to address the exploding affordable housing and homelessness crises in Los Angeles and across the nation. Since 2017, AHF has purchased, refurbished, and repurposed 13 single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels and motels throughout Los Angeles and on Downtown’s Skid Row and created more than 1,400 housing units for formerly homeless and extremely-low-income individuals. Nationwide, AHF has created more than 1,900 housing units with an additional 1,100 already in the pipeline.
Many of Healthy Housing Foundation’s refurbished hotels in Downtown Los Angeles are as old as Chaplin’s 1925 film classic. Now, these majestic hotels have been reborn and repurposed, offering many a resident a first step toward living their own “Best Day Ever.”