Features Blog
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Bloomberg Budget: More Than Meets The Eye For AIDS Services
Although no new cuts were made to the city’s HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) in today’s preliminary budget for the upcoming fiscal year, no news is not always good news.
Bloomberg’s budget proposal does not account for a significant number of cuts that have been made to HASA in the last few years – most notably, $5.1 million to supportive housing and $4.8 million to HRA clients’ brokers’ fees – which have not been base-lined into the budget proposal for FY13. These cuts are still on the table.
City Council restored all funding for supportive housing last year, which saved essential housing for some of HASA’s most vulnerable clients. But the constant onslaught of budget cuts to HASA’s programs have meant …
Posted on February 2, 2012 at 3:03 pm
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AIDS 2012 Plenary Speakers Lack Women and People Living with HIV/AIDS
The theme of this year’s International AIDS Conference is Turning the Tide Together.
Apparently the planners of AIDS 2012 did not have women with HIV in mind, because none are presenting on the plenary sessions that were announced this week!
Grassroots AIDS activists across the globe were angered this week by the announcement of the plenary sessions, particularly groups representing/comprised of HIV-positive women of color. In addition, Phill Wilson of Black AIDS Institute is the only plenary speaker known to be living with HIV.
In response to the announcement, the U.S. Positive Women’s Network wrote a letter to the AIDS 2012 Conference Committee that dozens of organizations and activists have signed on to in support. They …
Posted on February 1, 2012 at 3:30 pm
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HASA Policies Get New Hearing Next Week
AIDS activists are celebrating a new hearing to demand answers to recent policy changes at HASA. The hearing, called by the NYC Council, will be held on Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 1:00 p.m, in the Committee Room, 250 Broadway, New York, NY.
“HASA seems to change policies in the dead of night, without any accountability, said Kristin Goodwin, director of NYC policy and organizing with Housing Works. “We’re happy the City Council has called HASA to explain its decisions.”
Last year HASA announced it would no longer pay the full price for brokers’ fees for people seeking housing, and would only give landlords a “voucher” for security deposits. More recently, HASA was exposed …
Posted on February 1, 2012 at 1:53 pm
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Most In Mississippi with HIV Lack Treatment
Nearly two-thirds of people in Mississippi with HIV are without treatment, as reported by the Clarion Ledger in Jackson, MS. This news comes just one week after AIDS Issues reported on the threat to Health Department funding in Mississippi in the upcoming budget proposal.
The news report cited the stigma of having HIV in the state drives many people from even seeking treatment. Issues of transportation to health facilities in the mostly rural state presents a challenge also. But much of the responsibility lies in a state government that spends next to nothing on HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care, and has made it very hard for people to get Medicaid.
“Mississippi is one of the few, and …
Posted on January 31, 2012 at 2:12 pm
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New HUD Policies Protect LGBT People; LGBT Youth Mic Check Obama Staff
On Saturday, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan announced at the annual Creating Change Conference on LGBT Equality some new changes in HUD policies that will make discriminating against LGBT people and relationships with HUD funding illegal. Think Progress writes:
Under the new guidelines, any program that receives funding or insurance through HUD will be prohibited from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity, including Section 8 housing, emergency shelters, and other social services, as well as lending for FHA-insured mortgage financing. In addition, all such programs will now be required to recognize same-sex and otherwise LGBT families — regardless of their marital status or the adoption status of their children — to …
Posted on January 30, 2012 at 5:31 pm
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ADAP Watch: AIDS Drug Wait List Hits 4774
As of January 26, the wait list to receive lifesaving AIDS medication through the nation’s AIDS Drug Assistance Programs had hit 4774 people across 12 states.
The number of people waiting to receive medication through state-run AIDS drug programs has increased more than 5,000 percent since August 2009, according to the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors. The federal government has reacted with little urgency, however, allotting just $25 million in additional dollars to the program for FY 2012.
To help readers keep tabs on the growing ADAP crisis, we are now posting the Read More
Posted on January 30, 2012 at 10:14 am
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ADAP Watch: Iowa ADAP Clients Denied State Insurance Enrollment
The Des Moines Register this week reported that about 100 ADAP clients in the state were denied their only means of health care coverage by a state agency that’s supposed to be insuring people in a “high-risk” pool.
According to the paper, the state was given $35 million in bridge funding from the Obama administration to establish a state insurance program for people unable to get insurance on the market due to being considered “high-risk” applicants. The agency however refuses to accept “third party” payments, leaving one-third of the state’s ADAP enrollees without any coverage at all.
Sen. Matt McCoy, D-Des Moines said in a public hearing with the insurance board’s executive director, Cecil Byerk that “There’s no doubt …
Posted on January 25, 2012 at 7:32 pm
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Mississippi AIDS Activists Brace for Health Budget Slash
Mississippi AIDS activists are bracing for a $10 million cut proposed by the new state legislature that would take the State Department of Health budget to levels last seen in 1990.
“With Governor Bryant in office, we’re in for hard times,” says Luke Versher, Field Organizer of AIDS Action Mississippi.
The Clarion Ledger reported this week that the state was considering slashing the Dept of Health’s budget from $29million to $20million. By comparison, Arkansas’s budget for the Department of Health is more than triple that of Mississippi. Both states have the same size population.
If the $20.7 million budget passes, “it would devastate the critical functions of the Health Department,” said Dr. Luke Lampton, chairman of the state …
Posted on January 25, 2012 at 5:37 pm
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