The AIDS Healthcare Foundation takes in $2 billion a year, mostly from its chain of pharmacies and clinics. It’s foray into housing has drawn criticism that it has strayed from its mission of helping those living with HIV or AIDS.

In recent years, the healthcare foundation has spent more than $300 million to fund rent control initiatives and buy apartment buildings across the country, including in and around Skid Row, saying it could address chronic homelessness where others failed.

The foundation says it’s taken nearly 1,000 people off the streets and put them into permanent housing at its Skid Row-area properties, but those buildings have also been beset with heating, plumbing, elevator and electricity failures and vermin infestations, The Times found in an investigation published last fall.

Other supporters of Proposition 34 include health organizations like the ALS Assn. and the California Chronic Care Coalition.