D.C. Free HIV Test Program Expands

Get Tested While You Wait at the DMV

The District has expanded a service that provides a free HIV test while you wait at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Yesterday, the service was added at the Economic Security Administration office formerly known as Income Maintenance.

The office at 2100 Martin Luther King Ave. SE is where Washington residents register for food stamps, Medicaid and other government assistance.

Family and Medical Counseling Service Inc., a nonprofit, provides the free HIV tests privately at an office right across the street.

"We don't do blood. We do swabs,'' tester Karen Johnson tells patrons, explaining that the test of their saliva takes 20 minutes and that participants will not lose their place in the DMV line.

Residents receive the results, confidentially, the same day.

More than 5,000 people have been tested since the start of the program at the Penn Branch DMV.

"You have to meet people where they are,'' explained Sheila Brockington, who oversees HIV testing at the DMV. "You're waiting anyway. You might as well."

The service is especially important to the District which has one of the highest percentages of residents living with HIV or AIDS in the country.

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