Our History

Founded in 1984, The California Prostitutes Education Project is one of the first HIV education, prevention and street outreach organizations in the country. Our initial focus was prostitutes and their sexual partners including transgender individuals

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 HIV Infected Person in Care
  • Expand Prevention with HIV negative persons through PrEP (postexposure prophylaxis) as appropriate

What We Do

CAL-PEP’s model of service is based on one-on-one outreach and education. The impact of HIV on high risk, hard to reach African American and Latinos, women youth and men who have sex with men disproportionately affected by HIV requires repeated outreach and education as well as assistance with insurance, criminal justice issues.

Who We Serve

CAL-PEP is still one of the only organizations in the United States that works with street prostitutes (20% of clients), who include women, transgender persons and men. 83 % of our clients are African American, 8% are Latino, Asian/Pacific Islander 1% and other.4

CAL-PEP Philosophy

“Each one teach one,” to provide accessible health education to reduce sexual risk, prevent disease, link individuals to health care, treatment and support services. We respect both language and culture of those we serve.

CAL-PEP Staff

Our staff of 20 comes from the community we serve. Staff includes includes people who used to be drug users, prostitutes, homeless persons, youth, schoolteachers, wellness providers, counselors, case managers, peers, and others.