Knocking on the Doar
Commissioner Doar, so much to answer for…
This week’s City Council General Welfare budget committee hearing led to further questions about the dramatic impact of possible cuts to New York City’s AIDS housing services. Mayor Bloomberg’s controversial proposal to cut case management in supportive housing, eliminate the Scatter Site II program, and cut food and nutrition contracts were all questioned in the hearing.
Council Member Bill de Blasio, chair of the General Welfare Committee, asked Human Resources Administration Commissioner Robert Doar pointed questions about the effects of HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) cutbacks. (This wasn’t the first time Doar faced City Council’s wrath over AIDS housing this year.) De Blasio questioned HASA’s ability to pick up new case management responsibilities when clients receive less support from community housing providers because of defunding.
Doar stuck to the HASA mantra that HASA will be able to maintain the same level of services to clients once cuts are made. Advocates in the audience were visibly frustrated with his response, and many spoke against it at the end of the day during public testimony.
De Blasio also pointed out the high number of HASA clients living in commercial SROs and the rise in new HIV infections that has been reported in the last year by the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. When asked how these issues affected the decision to make cuts, Doar said he did not believe that the rise in new infections would affect the number of clients. De Blasio responded that HRA was painting a picture that was rosier than the reality and that HIV and AIDS was not something that New York City can ignore.
Council Members Letitia James and Gale Brewer also asked specific questions about the ending of Scatter Site II housing and the cut to Momentum’s meals program, citing the value of these services and the concerns of their constituents. Brewer even mentioned that she had spoken with someone over the weekend about the cuts to HASA at a neighborhood street fair. Advocates and consumers continue to push for these cuts to be restored.
More is more
Ironically, as the city proposes cuts to HASA, the Journal of the American Medical Association published the results of the groundbreaking Chicago Housing for Health Partnership (CHHP) study. The CHHP study revealed what advocates have long known and been fighting for: More housing is needed for people with chronic illnesses such as HIV/AIDS.
CHHP showed that stable housing and supportive services drastically improve health outcomes for those with chronic illnesses, including HIV/AIDS. CHHP also showed that when people are stably housed, not only does their health improve, but they access other services, such as shelters and emergency rooms, much less. Not only is providing stable housing the right thing to do, it costs cities much less in other services.
As we head into June, it is now in the hands of the City Council to make restorations to the cuts to HASA. In the next month, visibility is key as we take to the City Hall Steps to call for these changes to the budget.
Posted on May 29, 2009 at 12:20 am
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