When Stephen Fallon and Rafaelé Narváez began Latinos Salud 16 years ago, there were no other Broward AIDS service agencies dedicated to HIV prevention for young Hispanic gay men.
“At that time, even though Miami and Fort Lauderdale were already in the top 3 in new HIV [infections], there was not a single full-time, gay-identified HIV prevention employee in all of Broward County,” recalls Fallon, Latinos Salud’s founding executive director.
And for Broward’s burgeoning Hispanic young gay male population, there were few people in the HIV healthcare business who – quite literally – understood the Spanish-speaking community.
“All the places were saying, ‘Yeah, we can serve Latinos. Our receptionist speaks Spanish.’ Or ‘The nurse who's in on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, she speaks Spanish,’” Fallon says.
“But do you have gay, Spanish-speaking, always-there employees to serve this urgent need? And the answer was nobody did,” he says. “So we prioritized that.”
Funded with a $150,000 annual grant from the Florida Department of Health’s HIV/AIDS bureau, Fallon and Narváez opened Latinos Salud in 2009 off a Wilton Drive back alley, in a tiny space now occupied by Ethos Greek Bistro’s kitchen.
For the first two years, Fallon and Narváez (current director of health programs) referred clients to other spaces for HIV tests.
“In 2011, we added HIV testing,” Fallon says. “We tested 61 people in 2011, and then 129 in 2012 and 462 in 2013, and 930 in 2014 and 1,697 in 2015, on it went. We were growing, but it was still hard – it was scary to come in for an HIV test.”
The sudden 2014 increase in HIV tests came after Latinos Salud began also offering STD testing.
“And a lot of people who said, ‘I'm not gonna come in and get HIV tested – that’s scary – I don't want to know,” began seeking STD tests, Fallon says.
That led them to start getting HIV tested. The way Fallon puts it: “‘My dick or my butt is burning, and I gotta get that taken care of. Oh, as long as I'm here, yeah, go ahead, do the HIV test.’”
Then came COVID in 2020.
“We were the only agency that stayed 100% open for appointments and walk-ins. And a lot of people coming in for COVID testing tested for other things while they were there,” he says. “So we started really jumping: 5,500 people in 2020, 7,500 in 2021, 9,600 in 2022, 12,000 in 2023, and now get ready for this: 23,859 tested in 2024. Just massive growth.”
As business kept growing, so did Latinos Salud’s physical outreach. In 2010, the Wilton Manors-based agency moved to a larger space at 2330 Wilton Dr. Four years ago, it moved a few blocks away into a 6,300-square-foot building at 1401 NE 26th St.
Latinos Salud also now has three Miami-Dade County offices, in North Miami, Miami Beach and Southwest Miami.
The multi-county agency’s total operating budget in 2024, including 54 employees, was $26 million.
When Latinos Salud first opened, its clientele was “100% young gay Latino,” says Fallon, originally from Lexington, Massachusetts.
“Our first program [‘Somos’] was only gay Latinos 18 to 29. Our second program [‘Juntos’] allowed us to serve Latinos up to age 36. But by our fourth or fifth year, we were able to serve Latinos of any age,” he says.
Changes at Latinos Salud have occurred organically.
“We started out serving gay Latino youth, but pretty soon we had people coming in saying, ‘Well, the guy I'm dating is over 30.’ And we said we don't have any programs for someone who is older, so we added another program,” Fallon says.
“Then, we had people coming in saying, ‘I'm dating somebody who's not Latino,’ so we added programs to serve other LGBT community members. And then we had people coming in saying, ‘I don't need HIV prevention for myself directly because I'm already HIV positive. What have you got for me?’ So, we added case management.”
Now in 2025, with South Florida still No. 1 nationally for new HIV infections, Fallon says it’s time to make clear that gay men don’t have to be young nor Hispanic to enjoy the services of Latinos Salud.
“We're going to continue to prioritize the underserved gay Latino community, which often can't find health messaging in their language or culturally appropriate,” Fallon says. “But we've always said we're here for the entire LGBT community because we want them to feel in a safe space.”
Says Narváez, originally from Ecuador: “We want to serve everyone who walks in our door.”
Among Latinos Salud’s clients: classical pianist Samuel Fray, 37, originally of Mount Laurel, New Jersey.
“I've been going to Latinos Salud for several years now,” says Fray, an elementary school music teacher and part-time model. “I always found it to be a very welcoming place. I always felt like I was part of the family. Latinos Salud for me is like a family.”
Fray, an English-speaking African-American man, describes the bilingual staff as “efficient” and “so personable.”
“They really do care. If you were to go anywhere else, you're kind of just a number. But when you go there, you're definitely not made to feel like that,” says Fray, who receives PrEP HIV prevention medication at Latinos Salud.
“They will sit there and listen to any concerns,” Fray says. “Anything that you want to share with them: ‘Alright, this has been bothering me. I might have had a crazy weekend. Can you fit me in for an extra test because I feel like something funny might have happened.’”
Another Latinos Salud client is Tom Jones, 80, a retired Procter and Gamble corporate attorney from Cincinnati, Ohio.
Jones, who moved to Fort Lauderdale about 20 years ago, says he met Fallon one day on the beach and that’s how he learned of Latinos Salud.
“I knew a bit about it, so I went on my own for STD tests,” Jones says. “It's funny – I went because I knew it was Stephen's organization, and I knew a little bit that their main outreach was toward the Latin community. But, he said no, basically the door’s open for anyone. So I thought, well, then I'm going to go.”
Jones first went to Latinos Salud when it was located at its second, smaller space on Wilton Drive.
“Parking was very tight. It was not the easiest place to find a parking space,” he recalls. “But it was like a home when you walked into it. It was like a living room. There was a desk or two, but it was so comfortable.”
Jones says the agency’s new, renovated office (with five testing rooms, case management space, an examination suite and other amenities) has plenty of parking and maintains its old cozy ambiance.
“I must say, the welcoming feeling they have now is the same as it was when it first started up – a real sort of living room-type welcome,” Jones says. “It wasn't the fancy place it is now, but the people were still the same in their outlook and in their welcoming feel to people.”
Jones says Latinos Salud offers many more services today than when he first met Fallon.
“Back then it was basically STD testing and HIV testing,” he says. “Now, they do everything. You walk in the door of their Wilton Manors building and there's this giant poster that's about eight feet tall, listing all the services that they offer.
“They've gotten into vaccinations. During COVID, I got most of my shots there when the vaccines came along. Every time there's been an outbreak, like monkeypox, you could go, you could learn about it, and you could get the vaccines for it.”
Jones, who is not Hispanic, also says he has no problem relating to the mostly younger Latino staff.
“I relate completely because they don't make you feel, or you don't feel, like you're any different than they are, to be perfectly honest,” he says. “I'll give you an example: This morning I went in for blood work to be done to continue on PrEP. The guy who took my blood and checked things off, he had to be really young. … He treated me just like I could have been two years older than him. I was just a client. The same big smile, the same ‘Have a cup of coffee.’
“That’s one of the reasons I go there. And this is a terrible thing to say because it has nothing to do with the organization at all, but they've got the best coffee on Wilton Drive.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
What: Latinos Salud
Services include: Wellness clinic, LGBTQ health, HIV and PrEP/PEP care, vaccinations, support groups
Where: 1401 NE 26th St., Wilton Manors (954-765-6239); 640 NE 124th St., North Miami (786-631-4538); 925 Arthur Godfrey Rd., Ste 200, Miami Beach (305-397-8967); 8946 SW 40th St., Westchester (786-801-1803)
Hours: Mondays through Fridays 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Contact: www.latinossalud.org
Journalist Steve Rothaus covered LGBTQ issues for 22 years at the Miami Herald.
