Our History

Over 40 Years of Community-Centered Care

Founded in the early 1980s at the height of the HIV/AIDS crisis, CAL-PEP (California Prevention Education Project) began as a grassroots response to the urgent needs of marginalized communities—particularly people of color, people who use drugs, sex workers, LGBTQ+ individuals, and the unhoused.

Starting with street outreach in Oakland and San Francisco, CAL-PEP quickly became a trusted presence in communities that were largely ignored by mainstream healthcare systems. Our mission was simple but powerful: meet people where they are, offer nonjudgmental care, and connect them to life-saving services.

Over the decades, CAL-PEP has evolved into a comprehensive health and wellness organization, providing HIV prevention and care, harm reduction, mental health services, substance use counseling, housing navigation, and more—while never losing sight of our community roots.

What began as a street-based outreach effort is now a multiservice agency guided by cultural humility, compassion, and the belief that everyone deserves access to quality care—regardless of their circumstances.

Since 1990 CAL-PEP programs have evolved with HIV science to a high impact approach.

Street based/mobile and rapid HIV and other testing and specimen collection
Evidence Based Approach through research, evaluation and quality assurance
Focus on Getting HIV Positive Individuals into treatment and reduce transmission from HIV positive to HIV negative partners
Shift to Prevention with HIV positive individuals through Linkage to Care and Drug Treatment aggressively Identify, Link, and Retain Persons living with HIV into Care
Expand Prevention with HIV negative persons through PrEP (postexposure prophylaxis) as appropriate

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