Nadler Takes AIDS Housing to the House
Be here, the Cannon Office Building, on Tuesday June 2 at 12:30pm! Nadler and advocates will be announcing his housing resolution
New York Congressman Jerrold Nadler will demonstrate his steadfast support for AIDS housing next Tuesday, when he holds a press conference to announce his introduction of a Congressional resolution establishing the critical role of housing in fighting HIV and AIDS. While not publicly available yet, the resolution goes into convincing detail about both the studies and statistics that prove the need for stable, affordable housing for people living with HIV and AIDS as well as housing’s effectiveness in improving health outcomes.
The press conference will take place Tuesday, June 2 at 12:30pm outside of the Cannon House Office Building; 300 New Jersey Ave (and Independence Ave), SE, Washington, DC.
Resolution cosponsors include Representatives Jim McDermott (D-WA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Joe Crowley (D-NY), Howard Berman (D-CA), Raul Grijalva (D-AZ), Barney Frank (D-MA), Res. Comm. Pedro R. Pierluisi (D), José Serrano (D-NY), John Lewis (D-GA) and Mike Castle (R-DE).
“Advances in treatment have offered new hope to people living with HIV/AIDS, but the costs associated with these treatments often force people to decide between essential medications and other necessities, such as housing,” Nadler told the Update. “That is why I am reintroducing a resolution that would shine a light on the toll that homelessness and unstable housing take on people living with HIV/AIDS.”
A crisis near by
Representatives from the National AIDS Housing Coalition, Housing Works, the Ontario HIV Treatment Network (OHTN) , and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health will attend the press conference, as will J’mia Edwards. Edwards is a housing advocate who is on the waiting list for HOPWA-subsidized housing in Washington, D.C.
Last October, the D.C. Department of Health told Edwards she would have to leave her subsidized housing, but since then she has been unable to get a clear answer about when and where she will go. “We don’t know anything! It puts you between a rock and a hard place. I don’t know where to register my kids for school,” said Edwards, a mother of three. “I constantly worry. I don’t sleep. I think what am I going to do?”
Last December, AIDS advocates drew attention to the District’s outrageous AIDS housing waiting list, for which no satisfactory explanation could be provided. Thanks to activist pressure, D.C’s Department of Health pledged to take steps to address its 278-person HOPWA housing waiting list. Today that list stands at approximately 350 people.
Reaching the summit
Nadler’s press conference is also the unofficial kickoff of the three-day North American AIDS Housing and Research Summit IV, featuring appearances by White House AIDS chief Jeffrey Crowley and renowned humanitarian Stephen Lewis. This year, the Summit will take place from Wednesday, June 3 to Friday, June 5 at the Doubletree Hotel Crystal City near Washington D.C. See conference information, including registration.
Organized by the National AIDS Housing Coalition, the Ontario HIV Treatment Network (OHTN) and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Summit will feature addresses by:
Stephen Lewis (Friday, June 5, 10:30 am): former UN special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa from 2001 to 2006, Lewis is codirector of AIDS Free World, a new international AIDS advocacy organization. Lewis was the Canadian ambassador to the United Nations from 1984 to 1988.
Jeffrey Crowley (Wednesday, June 3, 1:30 pm): Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy. Before his appointment to the position by Pres. Obama, Crowley was a Senior Research Scholar at Georgetown University’s Health Policy Institute and a Senior Scholar at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University Law Center.
Also speaking will be Fred Karnas, Senior Advisor to HUD Secretary Shawn Donovan, and Esther Boucicault, executive director of Haiti’s Fondation Esther Boucicault-Stanislas and the first person in Haiti to publicly discuss living with HIV.
Last year’s summit generated in-depth coverage from the Wall Street Journal and featured preliminary data from a groundbreaking Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study, a Chicago Housing for Health Partnership study and Positive Spaces Healthy Places, the first Canadian study to examine the link between housing and health.
Those studies showed that providing housing for homeless people living with HIV/AIDS improves health outcomes and saves millions in medical costs. This year’s summit will feature final results data from each of these studies, as well as dozens of other papers and presentations.
For more information, contact Virginia Shubert at gshubert@shubertbotein.com
Posted on May 29, 2009 at 1:57 am
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