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AIDS Issues Update: Features:

City Council Grills HRA Commissioner on illegal HASA cuts

On Tuesday City Council members ripped into Human Resources Administration Commissioner Robert Doar for Mayor Bloomberg’s deep proposed cuts to the HIV/AIDS Services Administration. General Welfare Chair Annabel Palma declared fighting the cut to 248 HASA case managers— 28 percent of the total—her top priority, and held a press conference with advocates before the hearing.

In addition to Palma, council member Charles Barron was one of Doar’s harshest critics. When Doar remarked he was “proud” of his department, Barron responded. “We’re not looking for you being proud. Some people say we’re cutting to the bone. But this is cutting to the marrow. I know people don’t like to deal with race, but race still matters. And the people who struggle most are poor families of color and we want to make sure the budget’s not balanced on their backs if there are alternatives.”

Bloomberg’s cut is a clear violation of Local Law 49, a federal court order and the Americans with Disabilities Act, which maintains that poor people with AIDS need assistance in accessing and maintaining their subsistence benefits, essentially a “ramp” to their benefits. Client-to-caseworker ratios is fundamental to ensuring that clients can access their benefits primarily through “intensive case management,” with initial ratios of approximately 30 clients to one HASA case manager, and 24 families to one case worker.

At the hearing, Doar said that HASA would count community case workers toward the case worker-to-client ratio and therefore remain inside the law. “We believe we’re absolutely in compliance with the spirit of Local Law 49,” Doar told the Council members on the General Welfare committee.

Under questioning by Palma, however, Doar admitted that community case managers are unable to provide benefits to HASA clients. Community case managers, because they aren’t government employees, don’t have access to the same government resources.

Doar weakly tried to counter that HASA case managers don’t actually provide the benefits themselves, saying that only another set of HASA workers, known as “HASA eligibility specialists,” actually link clients to the benefits.

Armen H. Merjian, the Housing Works Senior Staff Attorney who litigated this case worker ration issue, disagreed strenuously in his remarks during the public comment period.

“Eligibility workers cut checks, HASA case workers get people the benefits and services,” Merjian said. “A [community] case worker at Housing Works doesn’t have a welfare screen in front of her. And she has her own work to do. The City Council can’t leave it up to the courts. Tell them they can’t derogate from 34 to 1 overall or 20 to 1 for families, or people will get sick and they will die.”

Cathy Bowman, director of South Brooklyn Legal Services legal division, agreed.

“Certain things said by Commissioner Doar were incredibly misleading,” Bowman said during her public comment. “[This reading of Local Law 49] couldn’t in any way be in the spirit of the law. This whole issue has been extensively litigated. HASA case managers are an accommodation to people living with HIV/AIDS. “

HASA serves 31,000 New Yorkers with AIDS. Only 5,331 have community case managers. Most of those 5,331 are living in supportive housing because they have problems other than HIV/AIDS, such as drug addiction or mental illness.

Council is skeptical

Beyond the legal implications, council members and advocates expressed concern about what these cuts would mean to HASA clients.

“It seems to me HASA is maybe taking a disproportionate hit,” said Jimmy Van Bramer, a first-year councilmember from Queens. “I think we all know it’s more difficult for people living with HIV/AIDS without shelter.

In addition to the illegal cuts, HRA proposed cutting $1.9 million (which goes up to $3.8 million when the state match is added in) in supportive housing case management in supportive housing contracts. They also proposed cutting funding by an additional 11 percent for all HIV/AIDS supportive housing contracts. This proposed cut is included in the mayor’s “contingency” budget as a possible consequence of any major reductions in state assistance to the city.

Council member Charles Barron said these cuts fall disproportionately on minorities. When Doar remarked he was “proud” of his department, Barron responded. “We’re not looking for you being proud. Some people say we’re cutting to the bone. But this is cutting to the marrow. I know people don’t like to deal with race, but race still matters. And the people who struggle most are poor families of color and we want to make sure the budget’s not balanced on their backs if there are alternatives.”

Wanda Hernandez, a HASA client who is not living in supportive housing (so is not eligible for the community case managers), said during public comment that she worried about service disruptions at HASA if the case management ratios are disrupted. “I’m not the biggest fan of HASA case workers, but things would get worse. The first place I was placed in was vermin-, roach- and bedbug-infested. It took a year to find a new apartment. I know it would take longer if there are less case managers. The stress of trying to get a roof over your head is a consistent bother.”

Other bad cuts…

While the illegal cuts to HASA case management took up a large amount of time at the hearing, advocates are worried that this proposed cut is just a strategy that will leave HRA to instead make deeper cuts to community case management. These cuts were attempted last year and staved off by City Council. In addition, HRA proposed cutting a food and nutrition program by 50 percent—or $500,000— because the Momentum Project has other sources of funding and doesn’t use the money to purchase food directly. Last year City Council restored the funding cuts.

In his public testimony, Village Care of New York Policy Director Matt Lesieur said, “I’m feeling a huge sense of deja vu. Just like last year HASA dusts it off and resubmitted it to this council.”

Lesieur rebuffed HRA’s earlier claims, saying that Momentum has made budget cuts and “It’s not like we’re handing out military MREs to clients. We have to rent the space, clean up afterwards and distribute the food.”

After Lesieur and the other speakers about the AIDS-related cuts spoke, Palma made a remark that sounded hopeful to advocates.

“This council is committed to doing the responsible thing and doing the right thing,” Palma said.

• Categorized as: AIDS Issues Update, Features
• Posted by Diana Scholl , March 11, 2010 at 5:30pm