LOCAL NEWS

Activists push for AIDS housing
Some believe that the city is not doing enough to provide housing for people with AIDS

By JAMES WITHERS
Friday, May 06, 2005

Amos Hough wants one thing from the city’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene: to make sure advocates are at the table when the DOHMH makes decisions about housing and shelters for people with HIV and AIDS. “They are making decisions for us without us,” Hough said.

Last Friday, April 29, Hough, a board member of the New York City AIDS Housing Network, joined other community activists and Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum on the steps of City Hall accusing DOHMH of having a closed door meeting about housing for people with HIV and AIDS without consulting the very organizations that deal with that issue.

“They are purposely excluding from the decision making process the very people who know the most about it,” Gotbaum said. Last June,Mayor Michael Bloomberg disbanded the Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS Advisory Committee. HAC was formed in 1992 to “ensure community input in the city’s use of federal funds” from the Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to a Gotbaum’s press release.

Since the last meeting of HAC, federal funding for HIV housing has been cut by $ 9.75 million. The DOHMH said in a statement that the Health Department has been forced to pass federal funding cuts to housing programs. “The Health Department is minimizing the impact on direct housing programs, and is planning on taking larger cuts in Department-operated programs than from community-operated programs,” according to the statement.

In a May 3 Housing Works Update newsletter, Jennifer Flynn of NYCAHN said that one of the programs most likely to be cut is the Citywide Harm Reduction. That outreach program works with people with HIV and AIDS who live in the city’s single room occupancy hotels by providing them with “medical care and doctor visit transportation to toilet paper, commonly unavailable in the oftenunkempt hotels.”

“Frieden’s already cut the program by $300,000,” Flynn said in the newsletter. “He wants to make further cuts. We’d hope the cuts would come from the administrative side, not from direct services.” Flynn told the New York Blade that, according to numbers from HOPWA, there were “approximately 3,600 homeless people living with AIDS in the city last September.”

Flynn also said that while cuts were inevitable due to the loss of federal dollars she hoped the city would keep services intact. “We would prefer people with AIDS to get services,” Flynn said. “They must avoid cutting services at all costs.” In an April 28 letter addressed to Regina Quattrochi, the chief executive officer of Bailey House (a private provider of housing for people with AIDS), DOHM assistant commissioner Dr. Scott Kellerman, assured her that HAC would be reconvened and the April 29 meeting was not meant as to replace it.

“The meeting scheduled for April 29, 2005, is not intended to replace the HOPWA Advisory Committee,” Kellerman wrote. “This group of housing providers and community leaders, will provide important information and perspectives on housing issues, as do you and other respected members of the community.”

Attending the meeting with DOMH officials were representatives from United Neighborhood Houses, Staten Island AIDS Task Force, St. Vincent’s Catholic Medical Centers of New York, Harm Reduction Coalition, HIV/AIDS Services Administration, Harlem Director’s Group, New York City Housing Authority, Hudson Planning Group, Postgraduate Center for Mental Health, Center for Urban Community Services, and the Department of Housing Preservation and Development.

At the press conference, Quattrochi expressed her frustration at the closing of HAC and wondered why the city would not seek the committee’s input, especially with decrease in federal dollars. “Is the city so afraid of criticism or is the city not willing — or not interested — in community feedback and input,” she asked.

The DOMH described Gotbaum as “misinformed.” “The Public Advocate is misinformed. The Health Department welcomes meetings and ongoing collaboration with organizations in the AIDS housing community,which share our commitment to achieving critically important HIV/AIDS housing and housing-related services,” DOMH said in a statement.

“The Health Department will continue to work collaboratively with all groups interested and is committed to HIV/AIDS housing and will continue to keep the HIV/AIDS housing community and people living with HIV/AIDS informed about and included in this process.”

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