International AIDS Housing Roundtable
Global awareness of the importance of housing as an HIV prevention and treatment tool is in its infancy, but it’s growing at a rapid pace, in part thanks to Housing Works’ efforts. Housing Works collaborated with numerous other international organizations to host the first-ever International AIDS Conference satellite session on homelessness and HIV in 2008 in Mexico City.
Titled the “International Summit on Poverty, Homelessness and HIV/AIDS,” the session attracted an audience of more than 150 people and led to a pledge from the International AIDS Society (IAS) to confront the lack of adequate housing as a barrier to HIV prevention, treatment and care.
Throughout the week-long 2008 conference, Housing Works activists staged protests that turned up the heat on IAC dignitaries Bill Clinton and UNAIDS executive director Peter Piot, demonstrating the growing international muscle of the housing movement. The daily actions brought widespread media coverage.
Thanks to excitement from IAC participants, hundreds of people from across the globe joined the International AIDS Housing Roundtable (IAHR), exchanging listserv e-mails and participating in monthly conference calls to explore ways to pressure their governments to make housing for people with HIV and AIDS a priority.
Rep. Jerrold Nadler has introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives, “Expressing the sense of the Congress that the lack of adequate housing must be addressed as a barrier to effective HIV prevention, treatment, and care, and that the United States should make a commitment to providing adequate funding for developing housing as a response to the AIDS pandemic.” An identical resolution passed in the Delaware legislature.
The IAHR is pressuring the IAS to give prominence to HIV and housing at the 2010 International AIDS Summit in Vienna. The IAHR is asking for a major speaker on the topic of homelessness and housing as a part of prevention and care and an explicit call for abstracts related to poverty and homelessness.
What Can You Do?
- Become a part of the International AIDS Housing Roundtable
- Support our advocacy work by becoming a Housing Works member
- Subscribe to our AIDS Issues Update e-newsletter to stay current on the issues and receive action alerts
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Published weekly, the AIDS Issues Update is your inside source for in-depth activism news.
Contact
Send thoughts and story tips to j.turkewitz@housingworks.org
