Housing Works News

Housing Works Activists Disrupt Meeting; Demanding “Change the Definition”

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 13:07:00

Housing Works knows how to make a statement. Last week seven Housing Works staffers interrupted a State meeting demanding that New York State change the definition of HIV-illness.

Thousands of poor people with HIV throughout New York State cannot access lifesaving supportive services, such as housing and nutritional assistance, because they don’t meet New York’s antiquated definition of having “HIV-Illness.” The State’s definition originated as a means for billing Medicaid and is not used by any doctors or even the health department. However, it was used when creating the law that requires New York City to house everyone with symptomatic HIV or AIDS. Because of the definition, people don’t qualify for housing until they are already seriously ill.

For more information about this ongoing campaign, go to redefineit.org, watch video of Housing Works activism in action, and read Housing Works President and CEO Charles King’s op-ed in the Villager about the need to house people with HIV.

Housing Works Reveals More Details About Fashion for Action 2009, co-chaired by Derek Lam

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:37:00

New York, NY – “Become a Fashionista” for a day! Receive a head-to-toe makeover, a designer outfit provided by Gilt Groupe and tickets to the Oscar de la Renta, BCBG MAXAZRIA, Tracy Reese, and Rebecca Taylor shows during Mercedes Benz Fashion Week Spring 2010 in New York City. Or do you feel more like “Bye, Bye, Birdie”? We have two tickets to the Broadway show, backstage passes to meet the cast and a private theater tour with John Stamos. For music lovers, how about tickets to the “Essence Music Festival 2010” and a three-night-stay in a hotel in New Orleans? You can bid on all this and much more at the Fashion for Action silent auction on November 19, 2009.

Co-chaired by Derek Lam and sponsored by Essence magazine, Fashion for Action is a four-day charitable fashion event, silent auction and sample sale that raises funds for Housing Works’ lifesaving services for homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS.

Over 150 top designers have donated $1 million worth of merchandise that will be sold at 50 to 70 percent off retail prices. Participating designers and brands include Acne, Balenciaga, Band of Outsiders, Bottega Veneta, Burberry, Calvin Klein, Christian Dior, Dolce and Gabbana, DVF, Fendi, Gucci, Hugo Boss, John Varvatos, Lacoste, Lanvin, Paul Smith, Ralph Lauren, Rogan, Theory, Yves Saint Laurent and many more.

Gilt Groupe, the official on-line sponsor of Fashion for Action 2009, has donated hundreds of fashion items for the sample sale and high-end designer merchandise for two special window installations at the Chelsea Thrift Shop (143 W. 17th St). The first window will be up until November 19, 2009. The second shop window will be installed on November 13 and run through November 26, 2009. All window items will be up for auction at www.shophousingworks.com.

What   Fashion for Action, Opening Night Benefit
When  Thursday, November 19, 2009, 7pm – 10pm
             6pm – 7pm VIP preview shopping event
Where  Event: Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th Street
             Silent Auction, hors d’oeuvres and cocktails from The Works Catering
             Private Shopping: Chelsea Thrift Shop, 143 West 17th Street
Details  Tickets starting at $100.Tickets available at www.fashionforaction.com

What    Fashion for Action, Public Sample Sale
When   Friday, November 20, 2009 – Sunday, November 22, 2009
Where  Chelsea Thrift Shop, 143 West 17th Street
Details  Free. Complete details at www.fashionforaction.com

About Housing Works: Housing Works is the nation’s largest grassroots AIDS service organization. Since 1990, Housing Works has provided life-saving services such as housing, food, medical, HIV prevention and job training to more than 20,000 homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS. Our chain of nine Housing Works Thrift Shops, the Housing Works Bookstore Café and other businesses provide funding to support this work.

For more visit www.housingworks.org
For more information on Gilt Groupe visit www.gilt.com/fashionforaction

Press Contact
STUDIO DOUEDARI
Katja_Douedari@studiodouedari.com
646.249.1347

Housing Works Community Profile: Cesar Figueroa

Mon, 02 Nov 2009 14:03:01

Cesar Figueroa was diagnosed with AIDS in 1989. Although he worked full time and had a bachelor’s degree in education, his AIDS diagnosis—and what he assumed would be his imminent death—led to depression and homelessness. Ten years ago, he was homeless, scavenging through garbage cans in Tompkins Square Park for food and not taking medication. “I ended up in Beth Israel in a coma for three months. I almost didn’t make it. But then I found Housing Works,” Cesar said.

Now 50, Cesar has been a Housing Works client on and off for nine years. He is on the client board of directors at the Housing Works East New York Health Center. He is an active participant in the health center’s program for people over 50 living with HIV/AIDS, which has given him an opportunity to talk to others in his peer group.

The program lost its city funding this year and is in danger of closing, but Housing Works is looking into new funding opportunities. “This program is too important to me for it to disappear,” said Cesar, who has been scouring the Internet looking for grant opportunities to save the program.

Cesar was featured in this week’s New York magazine article “Another Kind of AIDS Crisis” about aging with HIV/AIDS. Cesar is also interviewed in the accompanying video, where he speaks about his struggles with dementia, neuropathy, and depression. Cesar credits Housing Works for turning his life around.

“Before I came to Housing Works I was always very depressed because I didn’t have anyone to talk to,” Cesar said. “Housing Works is like the family I don’t have. They’ve helped me advocate for myself. When I’m here I don’t have to worry about discrimination.”

Support our services for clients like Cesar and others affected by AIDS and homelessness by making an additional gift. Or, to upgrade your membership and increase your support, please email Membership or call 347-473-7454.

Housing Works Congratulates Charlotte Moss!

Mon, 26 Oct 2009 14:39:01

Housing Works extends its congratulations to Charlotte Moss for winning ELLE DECOR’s Vision Award, part of its annual Women in Design issue.

Elle singled out Moss for being “equally attuned to the principles of classic decorating and the needs of a modern household.”

Charlotte has been a stalwart supporter and cochair of Housing Works’ Design on a Dime, our annual interior design fundraiser. Check out this interview that she gave us leading up to last year’s event, which raised $650,000 for Housing Works.

Housing Works Wins THREE Village Voice Best of NYC 2009 Awards

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:27:00

Housing Works is thrilled to announce that we earned three VIllage Voice Best Of NYC 2009 Awards!

The awards are…:

Best Thrift Store

Best Booking Coup

Most Stylish Yet Reasonable Furniture

Thank you to all our staff, clients, donors, volunteers, members, shoppers and other supporters who have helped us to operate succesful businesses that raise millions annually for homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. Learn more about all of our social enterprise businesses.

Housing Works announces Fashion for Action 2009, co-chaired by Derek Lam

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 14:19:00

New York, NY – Housing Works announced today the details of its highly anticipated
sixth annual Fashion for Action fall fundraiser.

Co-chaired by Derek Lam and sponsored by Essence Magazine, Fashion for Action is a four-day charitable fashion event, silent auction and sample sale that raises funds for homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS.

Fashion for Action kicks off at 6pm on November 19, 2009 with an opening-night preview shopping event at the Rubin Museum of Art and continues with a sample sale on November 20 – 22 at the Housing Works Thrift Shop in Chelsea. All proceeds will benefit Housing Works’ network of health centers – located throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn – that offer HIV specialty care to homeless, formerly homeless, and low-income men and women living with HIV and AIDS.

Over 150 top designers have donated $1 million worth of merchandise that will be sold at 50 to 70 percent off retail prices. New participating designers and brands include Acne, Band of Outsiders, Bottega Veneta, Lanvin, Karl Lagerfeld. Returning supporters include Bloomingdale’s, Diesel, DKNY Jeans and Polo Ralph Lauren.

Housing Works is proud to have Derek Lam co-chair this year’s benefit. “I am honored to be a part of this year’s Fashion for Action benefit”, Lam said. “Housing Works is a remarkable organization that is dedicated to helping homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. I encourage everyone to join me in raising money for this important cause.”

Guests will enjoy hors d’oeuvres and cocktails from The Works Catering, sample sale shopping and a silent auction.

What   Fashion for Action, Opening Night Benefit
When  Thursday, November 19, 2009, 7pm – 10pm
             6pm – 7pm VIP preview shopping event
Where  Event: Rubin Museum of Art, 150 West 17th Street
             Shopping: Chelsea Thrift Shop, 143 West 17th Street
Details  Tickets starting at $100.Tickets available at www.fashionforaction.com

For more visit www.housingworks.org

Press Contact
STUDIO DOUEDARI
Katja_Douedari@studiodouedari.com
646.249.1347

Housing Works Member Spotlight: Beth Torstrick Ward

Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:28:00

Satya Jewelry co-founder Beth Torstrick Ward wanted to use her thriving yoga-inspired jewelry business to promote Housing Works’ mission to end AIDS and homelessness.

“We like to support what we ourselves are touched by,” Torstrick Ward said. “Housing Works does a great job of combining shopping, giving back, and cleaning out the closet.”

So Satya Jewelry teamed up with Housing Works to create the Housing Works Tree of Life Necklace, with all proceeds going to Housing Works. Since its creation in March, sale of the necklace has so far netted more than $2,500 toward lifesaving services, such as housing, medical and mental health care, and job training for Housing Works clients.

An added bonus? Satya Jewelry’s donation to Housing Works turned Torstick Ward into a Housing Works Member, qualifying her for discounts at Housing Works Thrift Shops and Housing Works Bookstore Café.

Members at the Supporter Level ($480 or $40/month) and above get a free pair of tickets to Fashion for Action Opening Night, November 19.

“Housing Works Membership is the gift that keeps on giving,” said Torstrick Ward, who recently applied her Membership Discount to buy a fall Armani vest for herself and a set of Mark Twain books for her husband ‘s birthday at our Brooklyn Heights Thrift Shop.

Become a Housing Works Member and get the gift that keeps on giving. Or for another gift, purchase the Housing Works Tree of Life Necklace for $48 at ShopHousingWorks.com or at all Satya boutiques.

BILL THOMPSON TO ATTACK MAYOR’S AIDS POLICY AT RAUCOUS RALLY AT BLOOMBERG H.Q.

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 18:21:00

What: Rally protesting Mayor Bloomberg’s refusal to state his positions on critical AIDS issues and protesting the Mayor’s failed AIDS policies
Who: Comptroller candidate Bill Thompson; speakers and representatives from Housing Works, the Women’s HIV Collaborative and other groups; 75 to 100 people living with HIV
When: Tuesday, October 20, 12:30 PM
Where: 111 West 40th Street (betw. B’way and 6th Ave) outside Bloomberg’s campaign headquarters

Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Thompson will speak at a rally outside of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s campaign headquarters TOMORROW, Tuesday, October 20. Organized by Housing Works and the Women’s HIV Collaborative, the rally will protest Bloomberg’s refusal to state his positions on an array of pressing AIDS issues before the upcoming November election. The rally will also take Bloomberg to task for failing to reform New York City’s outdated AIDS housing policies and attempts to cut HIV-prevention funding.

Bloomberg not only turned down an invitation to participate in an AIDS-focused mayoral forum sponsored by AIDSVote.org, a coalition of New York City AIDS groups, but also refused to fill out AIDSVote.org’s candidate questionnaire. Thompson agreed to participate in the debate and filled out the candidate questionnaire, available at AIDSVote.org.

Every candidate for New York City Public Advocate and Comptroller either participated in an AIDSvote.org forum or filled out and an AIDSVote questionnaire.

“Mayor Bloomberg does not want to fill out the AIDSVote questionnaire because he is trying to dupe New Yorkers into thinking that he has provided leadership in the fight against AIDS. His website, which barely mentions AIDS, reflects the reality of Bloomberg’s neglect of the crisis. The Mayor has systematically tried to cut funding for AIDS housing and HIV prevention,” said Housing Works President and CEO Charles King.

According to the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, there are nearly 20% more New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS than when Bloomberg first took office. In 2001, there were 85, 329 New Yorkers living with the disease. As of June 30, 2008, the number was 104, 234.

AIDS groups are particularly angry with the Mayor for failing to reform the City’s backward policy of letting people fall seriously ill before they qualify for AIDS housing. Legislation called HASA for All that would provide housing to all homeless New Yorkers living with HIV is before the City Council.

The overall direction of the city’s approach to AIDS is also at stake in this year’s Mayoral election. Bloomberg put the coordination of many of the City’s AIDS services under the Department of Health, a move that has interfered with the ability of commissioners involved in AIDS policy to work together. Housing Works and other AIDS groups are pushing for the reestablishment of the Mayor’s Office of AIDS Policy, which would re-establish effective coordination, as well as allow the City’s Ryan White Planning Council, which influences the spending of more than $100 million in federal money, to operate more independently of DOH influence.

MEDIA ALERT: BILL THOMPSON TO SPEAK AT AIDS PROTEST OUTSIDE BLOOMBERG HEADQUARTERS

Wed, 14 Oct 2009 11:36:01

What: Rally protesting Mayor Bloomberg’s refusal to state his positions on critical AIDS issues and protesting the Mayor’s failed AIDS policies
Who: Comptroller candidate Bill Thompson; speakers and representatives from Housing Works, Bailey House, Women’s HIV Collaborative and other groups; dozens of people living with HIV
When: Tuesday, October 20, 12:30 PM
Where: 111 West 40th Street (betw. B’way and 6th Ave) outside Bloomberg’s campaign headquarters

Democratic mayoral candidate Bill Thompson will speak at a rally outside of Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s campaign headquarters next Tuesday, October 20. Organized by a coalition of AIDS groups, the rally will protest Bloomberg’s refusal to state his positions on an array of pressing AIDS issues before the upcoming November election. The rally will also take Bloomberg to task for failing to reform New York City’s outdated AIDS housing policies and attempts to cut HIV-prevention funding.

Every candidate for New York City Public Advocate and Comptroller either participated in an AIDSvote.org forum or filled out and an AIDSVote questionnaire.

The AIDSVote questionnaire seeks answers from Bloomberg on a number of other issues including helping illegal immigrants access AIDS treatment and care, HIV prevention in prison’s and the city’s reliance on substandard SRO hotels to house homeless New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS.
.
The overall direction of the city’s approach to AIDS is also at stake in this year’s Mayoral election. Bloomberg put the coordination of many of the City’s AIDS services under the Department of Health, a move that has interfered with the ability of commissioners involved in AIDS policy to work together. Housing Works and other AIDS groups are pushing for the reestablishment of the Mayor’s Office of AIDS Policy, which would re-establish effective coordination, as well as allow the City’s Ryan White Planning Council, which influences the spending of more than $100 million in federal money, to operate more independently of DOH influence.

Housing Works and the Campaign to End AIDS Demand More Than Talk from President Obama

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:09:00

Housing Works and the Campaign to End AIDS applaud President Obama for discussing the AIDS epidemic at tonight’s Human Rights Campaign dinner, on the eve of the National Equality March. However, we continue to decry the president’s failure to fulfill his campaign promises around AIDS and show the leadership necessary to ending epidemic.

In his speech to the Human Rights Campaign, Obama noted the work of AIDS advocates, and said HIV/AIDS continues to be a public health threat in many communities, but made no major promises for addressing the epidemic. He said he’d work to renew the Ryan White CARE Act, and that the head of the Office of National AIDS Policy is organizing meetings throughout the country. He said that he pulled back the HIV immigration ban. However, although steps have been taken to lift the HIV travel and immigration ban, the ban is currently still in place.

Tomorrow, tens of thousands of LGBT people will convene on the Mall in Washington, D.C. to demand equal civil rights. Because of discrimination, such as the prohibition of same-sex marriage, LGBT people do not have equal access to health care in the U.S, including the treatment and prevention of HIV/AIDS. According to the CDC, gay men are 50 times more likely to become infected with HIV. HIV infections among young gay men increased 12% between 2001 and 2006.

“President Obama will not earn the full support of the LGBT community until he shows that he actually cares about our health. Talk will not stop young gay men of color from getting HIV. Talk will not stop the discrimination that forces transgender people to engage in high-risk sex work. President Obama must take meaningful action on AIDS,” said Housing Works President and CEO Charles King.

Today, at the same time that Obama was delivering his speech, hundreds of AIDS activists gathered at the Ellipse for the Equality to End AIDS rally and vigil. A diverse list of speakers living with HIV reminded the world that ending AIDS, not just in the US, but worldwide, remains a priority for the LGBT community. With the one year anniversary of his election around the corner, the campaign promises around AIDS that Obama has yet to fulfill include:

creating a National AIDS Strategy to replace the nation’s patchwork and ineffective response to the epidemic
asking Congress to lift the federal ban on funding for needle exchange, without amendments that would sabotage its intent
allowing PEPFAR funding to be used for needle exchange programs in foreign countries
lifting the ban on people living with HIV visiting or immigrating to the U.S.

For comments and more information, please contact Diana Scholl at d.scholl@housingworks.org or 917-402-2576.

HOUSING WORKS is the nation’s largest AIDS advocacy organization. Housing Works also provides lifesaving services, such as housing, meals, medical care and job-training, to homeless and low-income New Yokers living with HIV AIDS.

The Campaign to End AIDS is a national coalition of people living with HIV who believe the tools exist to end the AIDS epidemic. The coalition demands that elected officials exert the political will to use those tools today.

Equality to End AIDS: HIV/AIDS rally and vigil this Saturday answers White House call to action

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:28:00

Media Contact: Diana Scholl; 917-402-2576/D.Scholl@housingworks.org
Organizer Contact: Christine Campbell; 202-409-9786/Campbell@housingworks.org

Tens of thousands of people will converge on Washington this week to march for equal rights for LGBT Americans. They will also remind the nation and the LGBT community that AIDS is on the rise among gay men and pay tribute to the more than half a million Americans who have died from the disease.

The Equality To End AIDS Rally and Vigil will take place Saturday, October 10, the evening before the massive National Equality March, from 5:30 to 8:30 pm on the Ellipse, in front of the White House. The event will feature an inspiring roster of speakers and performers (mostly HIV-positive), culminating in a candlelight vigil. The rally and vigil come just a week after the Obama administration released a “call to action” on HIV that solicits public input on a first-ever National HIV/AIDS Strategy.

“The weekend is about achieving full equality for LGBT Americans. We need to use that political power to remind the country that the AIDS epidemic continues. A great many young people will attend the march; we need them to continue the fight against HIV/AIDS,” said Cleve Jones, the founder of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt and one of the National Equality March organizers.

Gay and bisexual men are 50 times more likely to acquire HIV than anyone else in our nation. Among young gay men, the number of HIV infections increased an astonishing 12% each year from 2001 to 2006. Even though treatments have extended life for many people with HIV, recent research indicates that people with HIV live an average of 21 years less than their HIV-negative counterparts.

“Many of our most energized LGBT activists are too young to remember the devastating impact AIDS has had on the gay community. We must re-engage the larger LGBT community in AIDS activism,” said Charles King, President and CEO of Housing Works, which is the fiscal sponsor of the rally and vigil. “Ending the HIV pandemic is an issue of justice that must be their fight as well.”

Speakers and entertainers at the rally will include singer/actress Sherri Lewis, former Miss America and Broadway actress Kate Shindle, members of the Diva League (as seen on America’s Got Talent), Inner Light Ministries Choir, Rev. Kenneth Glasgow, San Francisco Human Rights Commission Chairperson Cecilia Chung, Shawn Decker’s Synthetic Division, poet Brandon Plain, gospel rap artist Desencé, singer/songwriter Dudley Sanders, POZ Magazine founder Sean Strub, Rev. Elder Nancy Wilson, Bishop Rainey Cheeks and DJ Stone. Many of the speakers and performers are people living with HIV.

Equality to End AIDS is organized by The Campaign to End AIDS and sponsored by Housing Works, Broadway Cares/Equity Fight AIDS, Westminster Presbyterian Church, More Light Presbyterians, OD/More Light Presbyterians, Advocates For Youth, AIDS Action, The Human Rights Campaign, POZ magazine (media sponsor), partnered with The Afiya Center, Bailey House, , CAEAR Foundation, Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP), Connecticut AIDS Residence Coalition (CARC) , D.C. Fights Back, Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC), Health GAP, Inner Light Ministries, Metropolitan Community Church, National AIDS Housing Coalition, National Association of People with AIDS (NAPWA), SisterLove, Southern AIDS Coalition and endorsed by ACT UP Philadelphia, AIDS Action in Mississippi (AAIM), International Association of Physicians in AIDS Care (IAPAC), Lifebeat, New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN), Positive Advocacy Caucus.

Two Weeks Until the Return of BRIDE ON A BUCK, Our Wedding Dress Sale and Vendor Extravaganza!

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 15:24:00

Our Bride on a Buck Wedding Dress Sale and Vendor Extravaganza returns on Wednesday, October 21! We’re selling $300,000 worth of deeply discounted designer wedding dresses and other bridal goodies, including dresses from:

Giovanni Ravello
Peter Langner (valued at $7,300)
Monique Lhuillier (valued at $6,200)
Ulla Maier (valued at $4,900)
Jenny Yoo Collections (30-plus gowns)
…and veils valued at $1,000 slashed to $250.

Event sponsors Starbright Floral Design (www.starflor.com) and Elaine DeLuca of Exquisite Events (exquisiteevents.com) will provide on-site matrimonial advice, as well as Giovanni Ravello himself! A host of other vendors will be on hand, including:

Adorn Brides (www.adornbrides.com)
The Works Catering (theworkscatering.com)
The Housing Works Bookstore Café (housingworksbookstore.org)
The Cake Diva (cakediva.com)
Dramatics NYC (dramaticsnyc.com)
Robert Griffin, calligraphy artist (robertgriffindesign.com)

Event Details!:
WHAT: Housing Works Gramercy Thrift Shop Bride on a Buck 2
WHEN: October 21, from 10am to 7pm
COST : FREE
WHERE: Housing Works Gramercy Thrift Shop; 157 East 23rd St. between 3rd and Lexington Aves.
EVENT CONTACT: Dan Moore 773-454-2865; d.moore@housingworks.org
PRESS INQUIRIES ONLY: David Thorpe 646-210-1805; thorpe@housingworks.org

ABOUT HOUSING WORKS: Housing Works is the largest community-based AIDS service organization in the United States, as well as the nation’s largest minority-controlled AIDS service organization. Since 1990, we have provided lifesaving services to more than 20,000 homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS. For more information visit www.housingworks.org

Art expert takes skills to non-profit

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:15:00

ABC7 profiles Housing Works volunteer Kathleen Guzman, an appraiser on Antiques Roadshow

NY1: Your 2 Cents

Wed, 07 Oct 2009 12:05:00

Housing Works President and CEO Charles King weighs in on the failure of Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to end homelessness on NY1.

This Year’s Annual Report

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:50:00

I am pleased to announce that the Housing Works 2009 Annual Report is available online. This is our first-ever online-only annual report and I hope you are as pleased as I am about this technological advancement. Not only is the online report environmentally sound because it reduces paper use, it’s an engaging read enhanced by video and audio clips, links to our website, and the ability to navigate through different sections quickly and easily.

And of course I hope you’ll be as pleased as I am with what the Annual Report reports! This has been an incredible year, with the launch of our visionary Integrated Primary Care initiative; the success of numerous groundbreaking advocacy campaigns; and the unprecedented expansion and revenue generation of our social enterprise businesses.

Thanks to your efforts, Housing Works is not an organization but a community where people come to heal. Thank you one more time for making the many accomplishments included in this year’s Annual Report possible.

Love,

Charles King, President and CEO, Housing Works

Reminder: Oct. 7 is Housing Works’ First-Ever Live Auction, with Celeb Auctioneer Kathleen Guzman

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:34:00

Housing Works first-ever live auction is coming! Next Wednesday, October 7, legendary auctioneer Kathleen Guzman will auction off 60 fine prints, including dozens by engravers Currier & Ives. Many prints feature charming scenes of 19th-century New York; they range in estimated value from $100 to $1,500.

EVENT: Housing Works Auctions Presents “Early American Prints,” a live charity auction with Kathleen Guzman
WEBSITE: www.housingworks.org/earlyamericanprints
DATE: Wednesday, October 7, 2009
TIME: VIP cocktail hour with Guzman and celebrity appraisers, 6 pm to 7 pm. Live auction, 7 pm to 9 pm
LOCATION: Housing Works Gramercy Thrift Shop, 157 E.23rd St (between Lexington and 3rd)
COST: Live auction is FREE and open to the public. $50 for VIP cocktail hour.
BENEFITS: All proceeds benefit Housing Works, which provides lifesaving services to homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS.

Housing Works is proud to announce that, thanks to support from Liveauctioneers.com, we will be able to offer live online bidding during the “Early American Prints” auction. Find out all the auction details at www.housingworks.org/earlyamericanprints.

Also, don’t forget that, while the live auction is free, for $50, the public can meet Guzman and a group of her celebrity colleagues, including Daile Kaplan, Nicholas Lowry of Swann Galleries, Eric Silver of Lillian Nassau, and Joyce Jonas, jewelry appraiser, at a VIP pre-auction cocktail party. Guzman, Kaplan, Jonas, Lowry and Silver have appeared frequently on PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. Purchase tickets to the VIP event. (Housing Works members get in free. Join now!)

The venerated auction house Swann Auction Galleries and the collectibles website Worthpoint.com are contributing support to the “Early American Prints,” event, which will feature champagne, light hors d’oeuvres and Martine’s fine chocolates of Bloomingdale’s.

“Early American Prints” was prompted by an anonymous donation of nearly 300 engravings and prints. Many were originally sold by the famed Kennedy Gallery.

“This is a unique opportunity to bid on treasured artwork for your home or collection and generously help a worthy cause,” says appraiser Guzman. “Charming and significant prints by Currier & Ives, Endicott Brothers + Company, and William Sartain will be offered. Most notable are the many works depicting Hudson River subjects and the Catskill Mountains to be sold without reserve to the highest bidder.”

Mayoral Candidate Forum on AIDS Announced; Thompson Attendance Confirmed

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:10:01

AIDSVote.org announced today that it will host a mayoral candidate forum focused on critical AIDS issues on Wednesday, October 21 at 4pm (location to be announced). Both Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Democratic candidate Comptroller Bill Thompson have been invited. Thompson has already accepted the invitation and completed his candidate questionnaire, which is available at AIDSVote.org.

WHAT: AIDSVote mayoral candidate forum
WHEN: 4pm, Wednesday, October 21
WHERE: Location to be announced
WEBSITE: www.AIDSVote.org

While format details have not been pinned down, candidates will likely answer a series of questions about urgent AIDS issues posed by members of the AIDS community. Organizers are hoping Bloomberg and Thompson may engage in some debate at the event, as well.

Much is at stake in this year’s Mayoral election. AIDS groups are pushing for the re-establishment of the Mayor’s Office of AIDS Policy. Bloomberg put the coordination of many of the City’s AIDS services under the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, a move that has interfered with the ability of commissioners involved in AIDS policy to work together.

A Mayor’s Office of AIDS Policy would re-establish that coordination, as well as allow the City’s Ryan White Planning Council, which influences the spending of more than $100 million in federal money, to operate more independently of DOHMH’s influence.

Bloomberg and Thompson will also likely be asked to address the funding shortages for AIDS housing and the City’s backward policy of letting people fall seriously ill before they qualify for AIDS housing (which could be addressed by the HASA for All act).

New York City remains the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. New York City has more people living with the disease—104,000 residents—than any other city in the nation.

In September, AIDSVote hosted a successful New York City Comptroller and Public Advocate candidate forum.

MEDIA REMINDER: Housing Works Unveils the Vault Couture Closet Tomorrow at Special Soho Location

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 10:40:00

WHAT: The Vault has finally arrived! Come get first crack at Housing Works’ secret couture closet filled with one-of-a-kind, vintage AND new couture clothing. Fabulous items include classic Chanel suits, Balenciaga riding pants, Bill Blass suits, Naeem Khan, Halston, Krizia and Badgley Mischka couture dresses. Most items priced between $65 to $1000. (Rentals also available for editorial shoots)
WHEN: Special one night only open-to-the public preview, Thursday, September 24 from 5pm to 8pm (by appointment only after the 24th)
WHERE: Housing Works’ Soho Thrift Shop’s secret back room, 130 Crosby Street
WHO: YOU, smart and uber-chic in your cutthroat-priced couture!
COST: FREE and open to the public.
BENEFITS: All proceeds benefit Housing Works, which provides lifesaving services such as housing, medical care, meals and job training to homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS.

Film Spotlights AIDS Activism

Mon, 21 Sep 2009 10:38:00

When the Campaign to End AIDS launched in 2005, hundreds of people with HIV/AIDS drove in caravans and walked to Washington, D.C. from throughout the country to remind the world that AIDS was not over. Filmmakers from Filmworks Brooklyn documented the effort of one of those caravans.

The result is Closer to God, a compelling documentary about a dozen people living with HIV and AIDS.

Closer to God focuses on the journey of a caravan that started in San Diego and headed through the South—and on the personalities and tensions within the diverse group of caravan riders who come on board with their own struggles.

The story focuses primarily on the caravaners’ dynamics, particularly the two caravan leaders Miss Judith, a grandmother from Ft. Worth, Texas, and Robin Webb, a gay PhD from Jackson, Mississippi.

“We had a lot of tensions in the group and issues they brought to the table. It was very painful. But at the end of the day it was a good thing,” said Webb, one of the participants on the caravan, who is a long-term survivor living with AIDS. Webb,who lives in Jackson, Mississippi, joined the caravan shortly after his partner died. The caravan was postponed at one point because of Hurricane Katrina.

“There were several amazing dynamics going on,” Webb said. “It felt like there was a slump in AIDS advocacy, and we got involved to stir up urgency around the epidemic.”

Housing Works is a founding member of Campaign to End AIDS. Read more about Closer to God, and about Housing Works’ activism.

Make a gift to Housing Works and support our advocacy efforts and services for people living with HIV and AIDS.

Health care parity for Puerto Rico

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 13:51:06

“Residents of Puerto Rico—who have been U.S. citizens since 1917— have long been subjected to unequal and unjust treatment by the United States on an array of matters. . .”

HOUSING WORKS PRESENTS “EARLY AMERICAN PRINTS,” A CHARITY AUCTION WITH KATHLEEN GUZMAN

Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:36:01

EVENT: Housing Works Auctions Presents “Early American Prints,” a live charity auction with Kathleen Guzman
WEBSITE: www.housingworks.org/earlyamericanprints
DATE: Wednesday, October 7, 2009
TIME: VIP cocktail hour with celebrity appraisers, 6 pm to 7 pm. Live auction, 7 pm to 9 pm
LOCATION: Housing Works Gramercy Thrift Shop, 157 E.23rd St (between Lexington and 3rd)
COST: $50 for VIP cocktail hour. Live auction is FREE and open to the public.
BENEFITS: All proceeds benefit Housing Works, which provides lifesaving services such as housing, medical care, meals and job training to homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS.

Housing Works Auctions announced today that on Wednesday, October 7, it will host “Early American Prints,” a live charity auction of 60 fine prints from 19th century America, including dozens by legendary engravers Currier & Ives. Longtime Housing Works volunteer and celebrity appraiser Kathleen Guzman will serve as auctioneer. The prints, which can roughly be broken down into Pastoral Scenes, Marine Subjects, Historical Figures and Events and Maps, range in estimated value from $100 to $1,500.

See a video message from Guzman and view selected prints online.

While the live auction is free, for $50, the public can meet Guzman and a group of her celebrity colleagues, including Daile Kaplan, Nicholas Lowry of Swann Galleries, Eric Silver of Lillian Nassau, and Joyce Jonas, jewelry appraiser, at a VIP pre-auction cocktail party. Guzman, Kaplan, Jonas, Lowry and Silver have appeared frequently on PBS’s Antiques Roadshow. Purchase tickets to the VIP event. (Housing Works members get in free. Join now!)

If you can’t make the October 7 live auction, a separate selection of prints will be auctioned online on Housing Works Thrift Shops’ auction site, Shophousingworks.com. Bidding online starts at 7 pm on Thursday, September 24 and ends at 7 pm, Thursday, October 8. Online auction items will be featured in the windows of Housing Works Thrift Shops’ 23rd St. and 77th St. stores starting on Friday, September 25.

“Early American Prints” was prompted by an anonymous donation of nearly 300 engravings and prints. Many were originally sold by the famed Kennedy Gallery.

Your Donations at Work at “Housing Works” Haiti

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 16:51:00

Housing Works has received lots of attention for opening two new stores in New York this year. What you probably don’t know is that we helped open our first partner thrift shop in Saint-Marc, Haiti.

Haiti is the country hardest hit by HIV/AIDS in the Western Hemisphere. With a population of roughly eight million, there are an estimated 271,000 people living with HIV and over 150,000 AIDS orphans. Stigma is widespread and there is little political or financial support for those who get infected. In order to help, Housing Works presented a $10,000 Keith D. Cylar Award to Esther Boucicault and her organization FEBS in 2008.

The more we learned about FEBS the more we wanted to do. We joined in their advocacy efforts. And we sent a shipping container filled with extra clothing from our warehouse to Haiti along with staff to do start-up trainings in order to establish “FEBS Boutik,” a thrift store on the Housing Works model.

Despite logistical challenges, on the first day we raised $1,100 in a country where the average person makes less than $2 a day. Today, the store is selling clothes faster then we can ship them, and the profits are helping FEBS expand its operations to include a full-service AIDS clinic and housing facility that mirror our own operations.

When you donate to Housing Works you can be sure it’s going to good use!

Donate at one of our nine locations during regular business hours, or call 1-888-HW-DONATE for a free furniture pick-up.

You can also make an cash gift and support our work at home and abroad.

Check out some shots we took on our last trip down there in August.

Green Blasted for Absence at Raucous HIV/AIDS Forum, Katz and Mendola Relate Personal Stories

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 14:47:02

“In the middle of a raucous HIV/AIDS forum for the public advocate and comptroller candidates in Bedford-Stuyvesant last night, the moderator, Manny Rivera, paused a moment to remind the audience about one candidate who was missing . . .”

Candidates for New York City Comptroller and Public Advocate to Participate in AIDSVote 2009 Forum

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:33:02

Candidates in the 2009 election for New York City Comptroller and Public Advocate will participate in a community forum focused on AIDS issues facing New York City on Tuesday, September 1 from 4pm to 6pm at Restoration Plaza in Brooklyn (1368 Fulton Street; A,C to Nostrand Avenue). Their positions on important AIDS issues are available at www.aidsvote.org.

All of the City Comptroller candidates have confirmed their attendance (Melinda Katz, John Liu, Joe Mendola, David Weperin, and David Yassky). Confirmed Public Advocate candidates include Bill de Blasio, Eric Gioia, Norman Siegel and Alex Zablocki.

The forum is sponsored by AIDSVote 2009, a coalition of people living with HIV/AIDS and Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Housing Works, Lower East Side Harm Reduction, the New York City AIDS Housing Network, VIllage Care and other AIDS and harm reduction service providers.

In order to find out where the Comptroller and Public Advocate candidates stand on these and other issues, AIDSVote 2009 sent questionnaires to the candidates. Highlights from those questionnaires are available online at www.aidsvote.org.

New York City remains the epicenter of the AIDS epidemic in the United States. New York City has more people living with the disease—104,000 residents—than any other city in the nation. With thousands more New Yorkers diagnosed with HIV each year, the city’s elected officials will face tough challenges regarding the lack of adequate AIDS housing, HIV testing, HIV in prisons, syringe exchange, care for undocumented immigrants and much more.

AIDSVote 2009 will host a similar mayoral race forum before the general election in November. Details on that forum will be available later in the year.

What: AIDSVote 2009 Comptroller and Public Advocate Community Forum
When: Tuesday, September 1, from 4pm to 6pm
Where: Restoration Plaza in Brooklyn (1368 Fulton Street; A,C to Nostrand Avenue)
Who: AIDSVote 2009 is a coalition of Housing Works, the New York City AIDS Housing Network and other AIDS organizations.
Website: www.housingworks.org/aidsvote
Contact: David Thorpe; thorpe@housingworks.org; 646-210-1805 or Kristin Goodwin; k.goodwin@housingworks.org; 347-473-7450

Check out new Housing Works Update blog

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 16:41:00

Did you know that the Housing Works AIDS Issues Update started as a weekly fax!? As part of our ongoing strategy to spread the word about important AIDS advocacy issues, starting today, the Housing Works AIDS Issues Update is officially becoming a blog. Now, instead of having to wait for your weekly Friday newsletter, the Update will provide you with daily postings about key developments in AIDS activism and policy. Go to housingworks.org/activism to read about Gov. Paterson’s lack of a position on a public healthcare reform plan and tomorrow check out a report-back on the AIDS Vote 2009 candidate forum for City Comptroller and Public Advocate —and start commenting on our posts.

Still want AIDS news delivered to your inbox? Don’t worry! You can you receive daily Update postings by subscribing to our RSS newsfeed (located on the blog’s homepage). In addition, the AIDS Issues Update Newsletter will be delivered to your inbox every other Friday. The Newsletter will have special, in-depth articles about the most pressing topics in the fight against AIDS.

You’ll receive the next AIDS Issues Update Newsletter on Friday, September 11. But in the mean time,there will be lots of content on the blog. Get excited!

Get your AIDSVote on

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:22:01

Why does Bill de Blasio oppose HASA for All? What will David Yassky do to make sure more people get tested for HIV? Find out the answers to these and other questions as candidates in the 2009 election for New York City Comptroller and Public Advocate participate in a community forum focused on AIDS issues facing New York City on Tuesday, September 1 from 4pm to 6pm at Restoration Plaza in Brooklyn (1368 Fulton Street; A,C to Nostrand Avenue).

All of the City Comptroller candidates have confirmed their attendance (Melinda Katz, John Liu, Joe Mendola, David Weperin, and David Yassky). Confirmed Public Advocate candidates include Bill de Blasio, Eric Gioia, Norman Siegel and Alex Zablocki.

Comptroller and public advocate are, after the mayor, the two most important citywide positions. The comptroller is responsible for auditing the performance and finances of city agencies, making recommendations regarding proposed contracts, issuing reports on the state of the city economy, marketing and selling municipal bonds, managing city debt, and serving as managing trustee of the public employees’ pensions funds. The public advocate is first in line to succeed the mayor, and the office serves as a direct link between the electorate and city government, acting as a watchdog for New Yorkers.

Candidates speak

“Too many New Yorkers know that if you’re not wealthy or well-connected, then City Hall doesn’t hear your voice. And when City Hall fails to listen, regular New Yorkers, and especially people who are poor or homeless, pay the price. As Public Advocate, I’ll listen to people who are HIV-positive and the organizations that serve them, and then implement solutions to help make government work better.” said Gioia, in a response to a questionnaire submitted to the candidates about HIV/AIDS care, housing and services that was posted on AIDSVote 2009.

Other candidates who have thus far submitted questionnaires are de Blasio, Mark Green, Siegel, Zablocki, Katz, Mendola and Yassky.

Some notable results from the surveys:

Most of the candidates for both offices are calling on Bloomberg to re-establish the Mayor’s Office of AIDS Policy, which he dismantled. Currently the New York City Department of Health is charged with coordinating AIDS services, though communication with the Human Resources Administration, the Department of Homeless Services and other departments that deal with AIDS care is notoriously fragmented.

An Office of AIDS Policy would also get the Ryan White Planning Council, which influences the spending of more than $100 million in federal money for New York City, out from under the thumb of the DOH.

de Blasio is the only candidate for who does not support HASA for All legislation, which would extend housing assistance to poor people with HIV before they get sick (currently, you must have a serious AIDS-related illness). HASA for All legislation is currently languishing in City Hall in de Blasio’s committee.

All other candidates disagreed. “I strongly support the passage of Intro 691 [HASA for All] which would qualify asymptomatic individuals for housing and other support services,” said Green.” When those with AIDS have to stop taking their medicine in order to be sick enough to qualify for benefits, something is seriously wrong… Intro 691 will not cost the City money due to decreased hospital and shelter costs. Indeed, it could save the City money.”

Public Advocate candidate Norm Siegel believes that every agency that gets public funding should have consumers on their boards of directors. This has been a thorny issue for AIDS groups.

Comptroller Candidate David Yassky, whom the Times endorsed this week, calls for the establishment of a task force to address HIV/AIDS issues and concerns.

The forum is sponsored by AIDSVote 2009, a coalition of people living with HIV/AIDS and Gay Men’s Health Crisis, Housing Works, Lower East Side Harm Reduction, the New York City AIDS Housing Network, Village Care and other AIDS and harm reduction service providers.

AIDSVote 2009 will host a similar mayoral race forum before the general election in November. Details on that forum will be available later in the year.

Talk of the Town

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:37:00

The White House officially kicked off its listening tour on creating a National HIV/AIDS strategy on Tuesday night, when more than 2,000 people from across the country attended an HIV/AIDS town hall at the 2009 Prevention Conference in Atlanta. Some 60 people spoke for one minute a piece, giving White House officials suggestions about transgender health, prison reform, rights of women, gay men, African-Americans and other pressing topics.

“A sustainable HIV work force requires a workforce under 30. We need new leadership, mentorship. I need this to happen before I die with no HIV strategy that includes me,” said one participant, an HIV-positive nurse. For more commentary check out this Prevention Justice blog post, and the conference’s twitter feed.

There are unofficial HIV/AIDS town halls taking place across the country—last week, White House Director of National AIDS Policy Crowley attended one in Washington, North Carolina and Rep. James Clyburn hosted one in Columbia, South Carolina. But Tuesday night’s meeting was the first of the White House’s official national HIV/AIDS Community Discussions. The town hall was moderated by SisterLove Executive Director Dazon Dixon Diallo, and attended by the full White House AIDS policy staff

Local or national?

Participants included young people living with AIDS, health care workers, and advocates. The chief criticism of the town hall was that after an hour of speeches by Atlanta experts about the pillars of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy, there was limited time to hear comments. In addition, although this was billed as the Atlanta town hall, because it was a national conference, Atlanta residents’ comments were overshadowed by national input.

“There were 200 reserved tickets from non-conference attendees, but many of those people came down from New York and D.C.,” said Housing Works National Field Organizer Larry Bryant. “ I don’t know that having those 200 extra tickets made as much of a difference as it could have. I think that’s something that they’ll look into for the next national conference.”

Still, Bryant said the event was a good start to an ongoing effort and the process for receiving testimony was remarkably efficient. Speakers used a worksheet created by the HIV Prevention Justice Alliance to organize their thoughts. These worksheets will be adapted by the White House Office of National AIDS Policy to use at other forums.

“This was not one of those belligerent town hall meetings—it was very productive,” said David Munar, AIDS Foundation of Chicago Vice President of Policy and Communications. “And the town hall participants weren’t the usual suspects.”

But activist spirit was in evidence. Before the town hall, a group of women held banners reading “Prioritize women, prioritize everyone,” showing the need not to lose focus on women’s role in the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

A new energy

This year’s Prevention conference was markedly different from two years ago. Advocates say that the new Administration brought new energy to the meeting, with officials from the CDC more willing to speak publicly about the need for structural interventions for prevention.

“I don’t know if I will say that we were all on the same page, but at least we were reading from the same book,” Dixon Diallo said. “It felt like the researchers and academians and the community people, that we are all in this struggle together.”

Top federal officials did not speak publicly in support of lifting the federal ban on syringe exchange funding. Although federal government studies have noted the effectiveness of syringe exchange, and Obama publicly supports ending the ban, the Administration has been loathe to get involved in the “culture wars.”

In her speech Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius didn’t talk about the need to lift the federal ban on syringe exchange funding. She did however, discuss groups marginalized by the epidemic.

There was a concerted effort at the conference to talk about men who have sex with men, (who, the CDC released, are more than 50 times as likely to be infected with HIV as women and straight men).

“In 2005, the CDC reported that in five major cities, almost half of all African-American gay men were HIV-positive, [and] the situation is also dire for Latinos,” Sebelius said. “Imagine if it were half the straight white women in Atlanta. Wouldn’t we be calling this a national emergency? Shouldn’t we be? That’s how we at HHS are treating it.”

Before Sebelius’s speech, a group of protesters from AIDS Foundation of Chicago, Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project and SisterLove rallied on stage calling for health care reform. Sebelius applauded.

“It was more of a pep rally than a protest,” Bryant said.

Picking Out PACHA

Thu, 27 Aug 2009 17:32:00

AIDS advocates are cautiously optimistic that the appointment of veteran AIDS expert Helene Gayle to chair the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) will bring greater community input—and more HIV-positive people—to the Council (see below how to nominate people)…

“I think her appointment’s a great idea, because of her international experience, renown, and work with philanthropy,” said SisterLove Executive Director Dazon Dixon Diallo. “I’m curious if Dr. Gayle is on board about being more engaging at a community level. She probably will be because of the amazing programmatic work she’s done. But she worked at the CDC at a time when community involvement wasn’t as prized.”

Gayle has long been involved with federal and global AIDS policy. She was the first director of the National Center for HIV, STD, and TB Prevention and also served as AIDS Coordinator and Chief of the HIV/AIDS Division for the US Agency for International Development (USAID). She most recently served as executive director of CARE USA. Her name has been on countless shortlists as a potential Obama appointee since before the election.

“Many in this interlacing world think Gayle will be shortlisted for something big—Secretary of Health and Human Services or Surgeon General—if Barack Obama is elected president,” the Washington Post reported in August 2008, during the International AIDS Conference.

Because of her stature, advocates believe Gayle will have the ear of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who announced Gayle’s nomination on Monday, as well as Obama. PACHA has no formal power but serves as an advisory body to HHS. During the Clinton years, PACHA had considerable influence, which diminished under the Bush administration.

But advocates say is that who else is chosen for the council is just as important as Gayle herself.

“People should start the nomination process, because PACHA will have to be a good team,” said Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project Executive Director Julie Davids.

HHS is seeking nominations of Council membership by September 11.

All nominations should be mailed or delivered to: Christopher Bates, Director, OHAP, Office of Public Health and Science, Department of Health and Human Services, 200 Independence Avenue, SW., Room 443-H, Hubert H. Humphrey Building; Washington, DC 20201.

For further information, contact: Mr. Melvin Joppy, Program Specialist, Office of HIV/AIDS Policy, Department of Health and Human Services, 200 Independence Avenue, SW., Room 443-H, Hubert H. Humphrey Building, Washington, DC 20201; (202) 690-5560; melvin.joppy@hhs.gov

Cheap and Chic: America’s Greatest Thrift Stores

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 17:10:00

“The art of thrift-store shopping combines attitude, planning and follow-through…”

Fall in Line with Housing Works Incredible Fall Preview Sales!

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 16:02:00

FALL IN LINE with Housing Works Fall Previews! Throughout the spring and summer, Housing Works squirrels away top-quality fall merchandise, then we unveil the incredible fall loot at individual “preview” sales at each of our locations. This year we’ll be having TEN preview sales because our new store in Hell’s Kitchen will be open (details to come)! Plus, we’re holding an online preview on our shopping website, Shophousingworks.com.

Click on the items below to see photos of some of Fall 2009’s featured goodies:

Gucci monogram tote: $150
Derek Lam tiered red dress: $250
Kate Spade red leather handbag: $60
Queen Ann-style armchair with hand-painted upholstery: $425
Vintage German pewter lion bookends: $85
Set of eight lacquered chairs: $650

In addition to these fabulous fall items we’ll also have shoes from Gucci, Theory and Prada and jackets from Costume National, Alvin Valley and Diane von Furstenberg! Wowza!

COST OF ENTRY: Entry to each sale is $10 at the door; however, entry to all sales is free for Housing Works members. Join today or become a member at any of the preview sales and still get in free! Feeling generous? Join at the “Supporter” level ($480) and get in early!

WHEN AND WHERE:

Wednesday, September 9, 2009, 5pm to 8pm
Tribeca- 119 Chambers St.

Thursday, September 10, 2009, 5pm to 8pm
Chelsea- 143 West 17th St.

Saturday, September 12, 2009, 10am to 6pm
Yorkville- 1730 2nd Ave.

Saturday, September 12, 2009, 11am to 8pm
SoHo- 130 Crosby St.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009, 5pm to 8pm
Gramercy- 157 E. 23rd St.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009, noon
ShopHousingWorks.com

Thursday, September 17, 2009, 5pm to 8pm
Upper West Side- 306 Columbia Ave.

Saturday, September 19, 2009, 11am to 5pm
West Village- 245 West 10th St.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009, 5pm to 8pm
Brooklyn- 122 Montague St.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009, 5pm to 8pm
Hell’s Kitchen- 838 9th Ave.

Thursday, September 24, 2009, 5pm to 8pm
Upper East Side- 202 E. 77th St.

BENEFITS: All Housing Works Thrift Shops profits go to Housing Works’ lifesaving services, such as housing, meals and medical care, for homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. Founded in 1990, Housing Works is New York City’s largest community-based nonprofit AIDS organization.

Reminder!: Tomorow is Editor’s Choice with Michael Carl, Shoshanna Gruss and Charlotte Ronson

Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:25:00

For this month’s installment of our popular Editor’s Choice series, Allure Fashion Director and Housing Works Board Member Michael Carl is hosting a “Last Days of Summer” one-night-only charity shopping event. Carl will be on hand to give fashion advice at the event, as will his cohosts, designers Charlotte Ronson and Shoshanna Gruss. While you enjoy light food and drinks, browse Carl’s carefully edited collection of beach items. All purchases come with a Completely Bare gift card good for $50 worth of waxing or $200 worth of laser hair removal!

WHAT: “Last Days of Summer Editor’s Choice” charity shopping event and online shopping at www.shophousingworks.com
WHO: Hosts Allure Fashion Director Michael Carl and designers Shoshanna Gruss and Charlotte Ronson
WHERE: Housing Works Tribeca Thrift Shop, 119 Chambers St. between Church St and West Broadway
WHEN: Tuesday, August 25, from 6 to 9pm
COST: FREE and open to the public
BENEFITS: Housing Works, the largest community-based AIDS service organization in the United States. Since 1990, we have provided lifesaving services to more than 20,000 homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS.

The White House Comes to Housing Works

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:27:00

Housing Works’ vigorous national advocacy office in Washington, D.C. has forged a close relationship with Obama’s top advisor on AIDS in the United States, White House Director of National AIDS Policy Jeff Crowley. Crowley requested a visit to our headquarters, and on August 14 came to Housing Works to meet our clients living with the disease. Their number one concern? Housing for people with AIDS.

“Women are out there selling their bodies because they’re homeless. They have nowhere to go,” said one of a dozen Housing Works clients who met with Crowley at the Housing Works headquarters in Downtown Brooklyn. “And when we get housing, they have us in the ghetto. We’re not getting enough to get out of the shelter.”

Crowley also visited Stand Up Harlem, a Housing Works congregate living facility situated in three gorgeous renovated brownstones with 12 apartments for individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS.

In addition to learning about our housing programs, Crowley was briefed on Housing Works’ job training program and Harm Reduction Place.

Read more about Crowley’s visit to Housing Works and about our housing programs.

CDC Hears Loud and Clear: HIV Travel Ban Should Go

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:50:00

In Surrey, British Columbia and Niagara, New York last Sunday dozens of Canadians and Americans joined in solidarity to support lifting the U.S. ban on travel and immigration by people living with HIV.
The views of the ralliers were buttressed by the incredible volume of comments made to the CDC in favor of its proposal to lift the ban: By the comment period deadline on Monday, the CDC had received 20,000 comments, the vast majority in support of ending the despicable policy—though some health departments pushed for mandatory testing of immigrants.

“We were all incredibly energized around eliminating this policy that creates so much stigma,” said Doulton Wiltshire of AIDS Niagara, the Canadian AIDS organization that helped organize the rally in Niagara. Wiltshire collected 300 signatures of people supporting lifting the ban on a giant petition, which was submitted to the CDC. At both the rally in Niagara and in Surrey, speakers talked about how the ban is discriminatory.

“If the U.S. wants to be a leader in the fight against AIDS, it has to start by eliminating any type of restriction on people with HIV status,” Housing Works President and CEO Charles King said at the Niagara rally.

See Surrey rally organizer Martin Rooney’s website for the full press coverage and see Reverend Keith Holder of Washington, D.C. speak against the ban in Niagara below:

Mandatory HIV testing

While the end to the ban will certainly face bureaucratic obstacles, the good news is that the comment period yielded comments overwhelmingly in favor of fully lifting the ban (The Human Rights Campaign helped corral 17,663 of the 20,000 comments through national action alerts to their lists). According to an analysis by Immigration Equality, no organizations or government entities suggested keeping the ban in place (though some individual commenters issued terse statements such as “NO HIV Immigrants!”).

However, there were a few comments from state and municipal governments that suggested retaining mandatory HIV testing from immigrants. These comments, which came from the California Department of Social Services, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and Multnomah County, Oregon were responding to CDC’s statement in the resolution that “although the approach of removing HIV from the definition of communicable disease of public health significance but maintaining the mandatory testing component of the medical examination was not selected for this proposal, HHS/CDC welcomes public comment on the advantages and disadvantages of this or alternative approaches, such as (non-mandatory) testing ( i.e., opt out/opt in approach).”

Experts agree that mandatory testing would be disastrous—and possibly illegal.

“Obviously everyone supports the goal that people with HIV should know they’re positive, but the immigration system is so ripe with stress, abuse and sensitivity. It is not the proper venue for testing,” said Immigration Equality Legal Director Victoria Neilson. “In addition, if the ban is lifted, it’s legally shaky ground if the U.S. even has the authority to test for HIV.”

Nancy Ordover, founder of the Lift the Ban Coalition, agreed that mandatory testing would create new problems. “If the CDC removes HIV from its definition of ‘communicable disease of public health significance’ but maintains mandatory testing for people trying to immigrate/adjust their residency status, HIV will be the only nonexcludable health condition with a mandatory test.”

Is this really the end?

While the end of the ban looks promising, immigrants with HIV trying to get green cards, and travelers from throughout the world who just want to visit the U.S. should know that nothing is a done deal.

What is the next step now that the comment period is over? The CDC will develop responses to the comments and a final regulation will be drafted and submitted to the Office of Management and Budget for up to 90 60 days for a second review before the CDC publishes the final review. If the ban is then lifted, there will be many bureaucratic hurdles ahead, particularly the process of reviewing greencard requests for the backlog of HIV-positive immigrants living in the United States.

This isn’t the first time the CDC submitted comments to lift the ban. In the early 1990s, the CDC solicited comments but when the ban looked like it might be lifted, Sen. Jesse Helms championed a 1993 law preventing HIV-positive people from entering the U.S. The 1993 law was repealed in July 2008 by Congress and President Bush as part of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR).

“We’ve reached this threshold before. A lot of people are feeling like it’s a done deal. What I did find gratifying was that the rule that the CDC put out, I think is good,” Ordover said. “But I won’t say I’m optimistic until the ban’s lifted.”

White House Comes to Housing Works

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:25:00

White House Director of AIDS Policy Jeff Crowley stopped by Housing Works last Friday and got an earful from clients and staff about HIV/AIDS housing, syringe exchange funding, transgender issues undocumented immigrants and other topics that affect their lives. Crowley asked for patience, saying “we have a lot on our plate,” and promised action, starting with a somewhat overdue response to the Ryan White CARE Act Reauthorization.

Crowley visited Housing Works as part of a one-day jaunt that included visits to Gay Men’s Health Crisis and Harlem United, in anticipation of a series of town hall meetings on the creation of a National AIDS Strategy. The first official town hall will be on August 25 at the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta. Crowley said there will be a meeting in New York, though the date is not set because his office is coordinating the schedules of Congresspeople who want to attend.

Crowley said that he is working to expand the fight against HIV/AIDS beyond traditional stakeholders, as part of the Act Against AIDS Leadership Initiative.

“People were criticizing us, saying ‘Why are your giving money to NAACP? They don’t care about AIDS.’ But that’s why we’re giving them money, so they will care about AIDS,” Crowley said.

In Housing Works’ informal meetings, participants pressed Crowley to understand that housing for people with AIDS would work to achieve all of the goals Crowley has set forth for a National AIDS Strategy—reducing health disparities, reducing new HIV incidence and expanding healthcare and primary care.

“Women are out there selling their bodies because they’re homeless. They have nowhere to go,” said Rita*, one of a dozen Housing Works clients who met with Crowley at the Housing Works headquarters in Brooklyn. “And when we get housing, they have us in the ghetto. We’re not getting enough to get out of the shelter.”

“Have you heard about the HIV housing declaration?” Housing Works Vice President of Housing Operations Ken Robinson asked Crowley in an elevator ride during a tour of Housing Works Stand Up Harlem, a group of renovated brownstones with 12 apartments for individuals and families living with HIV/AIDS.

Crowley hadn’t, but said he wanted to learn more. Robinson promised to send him information about the declaration, which states “we hereby demand that policy makers address the lack of adequate housing as a barrier to effective HIV prevention, treatment, and care; and we further demand that all governments fund and develop housing as a response to the AIDS pandemic.” Advocates are working to get this resolution passed in Congress and in the United Nations.

Crowley said, in response to the numerous questions about housing, “Housing is a problem in this country, period. We need to do a good job of showing why people with AIDS are specifically in need of housing.”

Staffing up

Crowley admitted that his position is a “challenging job” and that not everything is done as quickly as activists would like.

“The White House is working on a response to the Ryan White Care Act’s expiration date on September 30, but we’ve been busy,” Corwley said.

Hopefully, these delays will lessen now that Crowley, who has been an army of one in the White House Office of National AIDS Policy, has finally been able to hire staff. New hires include Greg Millett, a CDC researcher and James Albino, former director of national advocacy at the Hispanic Federation.

Both men have been praised for their commitment to the AIDS movement. Albino is a longtime AIDS advocate, formerly with the National Minority AIDS Council, who helped draw attention to Puerto Rico’s HIV/AIDS crisis and abuse of Ryan White funding.

Millett is a CDC researcher and ACT UP alum who conducted groundbreaking research that showed that although black men who have sex with men are more likely to become infected with HIV then their white counterparts, they are no more likely to engage is high risk behaviors.

Walt Senterfitt, a Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project board member, praised Millett’s hire. “He has worked for a long time—both doing research and helping to publicize the research that make it amenable to policy change, and to particularly highlight the centrality of the epidemic to gay and Latino men,” Senterfitt said. “And as a black gay man, and one of Caribbean heritage, he has a personal urgency he brings to a solid professional background.”
“ *name changed

Action Alert: Easy Steps to Impact Federal Policy!

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:08:00

It’s a busy end-of-summer for federal AIDS policy, and there are lots of opportunities to swing things in the right direction. Check out these three simple and easy sign-ons from our allies asking for important Congressional action on repealing the ban on syringe exchange funding, adopting effective healthcare reform and reauthorizing the Ryan White CARE Act.

1.Tell your senator to fully lift the federal ban on syringe exchange funding and oppose restrictive amendments that would sabotage the bill. Particularly worrisome is an amendment to deny federal funds to any syringe exchange program within 1,000 feet of a school, recreational center, daycare, playground, video arcade, or anywhere groups of children may go on even an occasional basis. For almost every existing syringe exchange project, and in most cities overall, this rule would present an insurmountable barrier.

The Harm Reduction Coalition has provided a simple form you can fill out to contact your senators to tell them to fully lift the ban on syringe exchange.

2. Call on Congress for a national public healthcare option and expansion and enhancement of Medicaid coverage. Sign this online petition by the HIV Health Care Access Working Group that states, “For the fight against HIV/AIDS, nothing could be more urgent than reforming our nation’s broken health care system.”

3.Tell Congress to extend the Ryan White CARE Act immediately. The Ryan White CARE Act sunsets on September 30, 2009—just six weeks from now! It’s important to tell Congress that Ryan White CARE Act services are a critical part of our HIV health care safety net. Congress must extend the Ryan White Program as a stand-alone bill by September 30, 2009 to avoid gaps in coverage. E-mail this letter.

(note: the letter to Congress, provided by AIDS Action, calls for a three year extension of the Ryan White Care Act, which Housing Works opposes. If you think that Ryan White should be reworked in 2010, or have any other changes to the letter to Congress, you are able to edit the text in the provided letter)

Women On the Rise in Albany

Wed, 19 Aug 2009 15:48:00

Although many of Gov. David Paterson’s key health and human services personnel have recently turned in their resignation letters, the good news is that, at least in the interim, they those folks have been replaced with insiders who understand and care about poor people and people living with AIDS.

Valerie Grey is replacing the beloved Dennis Whalen as state director of operations. She has worked in the State Department of Health in different capacities since 2007, and was one of the main champions of Paterson’s healthcare reform efforts to bring medical care into communities most affected by health disparities.

“Valerie has always been willing to give an ear to the most marginalized and ask the questions that go to the heart of the matter,” said Housing Works Vice President of New York Advocacy and Organizing terri smith-caronia.

Kristin Proud, deputy director of state operations, is temporarily overseeing the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, following David Hansell’s departure. Before joining the executive chamber in 2007, she was well-regarded for the work she did during her 14 years as an Assembly staffer.

“Kristin is quite knowledgeable about human services and antipoverty issues due to her years as an Assembly staff person. We hope that she will be able to utilize her understanding of the budget process to ensure needed and timely investments to strengthen the state’s social service safety net,” said Hunger Action Network Executive Director Mark Dunlea.

Shelly Nortz, deputy executive director for policy at the Coalition for the Homeless, agreed. “We are very pleased that Kristin is taking on more important responsibilities,” Nortz said. “In difficult times, it’s good to know that someone who understands the real-life implications of state policy will be there to help protect the neediest New Yorkers.”

When Proud was first appointed by Spitzer to work on social services and antipoverty initiatives, the Update wrote in 2007, “Proud has met repeatedly with New Yorkers who are living with HIV/AIDS, who have been homeless, who suffer mental illness or chemical dependency, with poor families and the formerly incarcerated, and she’s fought for their interests and needs.”

Since then, she has championed increasing the public assistance grant, which saw its first rise in almost two decades. However, Proud has not yet voiced support for capping rent for HASA clients at 30 percent of their income, which passed in the Senate but needs support from the Governor’s office.

Wendy Saunders is taking over responsibilities for Joe Baker, who left his post as deputy secretary for Health and Human Services in May to work for the Medicare Rights Center. Saunders’ new title is Deputy Secretary for Health, Medicaid and Oversight. She most recently served as executive deputy commissioner for the New York State Department of Health, where, like Grey, she was a key player in Paterson’s healthcare reform efforts.

“Wendy has been working in the health arena for many years and is highly knowledgeable and effective, and we look forward to working with her in that capacity,” said Medicaid Matters coordinator Lara Kassel. “Wendy has been part of the administration’s health team that has helped the state make significant strides in the way New Yorkers get the care and services they need.”

Border Patrol

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 17:43:00

The discriminatory U.S. HIV travel and immigration ban is the closest it’s ever been to being lifted. This Sunday, if you’re anywhere near Surrey, British Columbia or Fort Erie, Ontario, you can join advocates in crossing over the border from Canada to the U.S. to emphasize the discriminatory nature of the HIV travel and immigration ban. Unfortunately, HIV-positive Canadians aren’t yet legally allowed to take the journey.

The Obama administration has proposed lifting the two-decades-old ban on people living with HIV entering the U.S. The U.S. is very close to lifting this ban; national and international voices are needed to ensure that this is done.

The rallies will take place at Peace Arch Park, Surrey, British, Columbia, the last stop before the Canadian U.S. border AND Veteran’s Way, Fort Erie Ontario, by the Peace Bridge across the bridge to Buffalo, New York.

The Surrey, BC event takes place August 16 from 10:30 am to 1:30 pm PST. The Buffalo event takes place on Aug. 16 from 2:30 pm to 3:15 pm EST. Hundreds of people living with HIV and their supporters from Canada and the U.S. will be ? Speakers at the Surrey, BC event include Surrey Mayor Barinder Rasode, Vancouver Centre Member of Parliament; Dr. Hedy Fry and Housing Works President and CEO Charles King. Speakers at the Fort Erie event include representatives from local AIDS Service Organizations from both Canada and the United States, including Rosetta Menifee, the co-vice president of the Ryan White CARE Network, who lives in Buffalo.

Menifee is HIV-positive, and she describes the “injustice” that she can freely cross the U.S.-Canada border, while people with HIV/AIDS in Canada cannot.

“If we say all people should be created equal, that’s how we should treat them,” Manifee said. “As I should be able to travel, so should others.

For more information about the British Columbia event contact Martin Rooney, (604) 584-6475 or rally@martinstorm.com; for more information about the Niagara event contact Doulton Wiltshire, (613) 876-0819

Can’t make it up? Submit a comment in favor of the proposed ban fix, electronically via the Internet to http://regulations.gov or via email to Part34HIVcomments@cdc.gov. Or even easier, lend your name to Immigration Equality’s comment

Travel ban background information

United States law bars non-citizens infected with HIV or AIDS from entering the United States as visitors, and from becoming U.S. citizens. The U.S. is one of only 13 countries that has a ban on people with HIV entering the country. The other countries are Brunei Darussalam, Oman, Qatar, Sudan, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Singapore, Tunisia, Turks and Caicos Islands.

The HIV entry ban dates back to a 1987 amendment sponsored by U.S. Senator Jesse Helms, the late North Carolina Republican. Senator Jesse Helms directed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to add HIV to its list of “dangerous contagious diseases” that preclude people from entering the country.

In 1993, when HHS considered removing this restriction, Congress passed a law codifying the ban. This law was overturned by Congress in 2008, and President Bush was expected to remove HIV from HHS’s list of “dangerous diseases.” But this was held up because of bureaucratic delays.

The ban’s continued existence was once again brought to national attention in June when 60 Canadians were banned from entering the U.S. to attend the North American Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit in Washington, D.C.

Then on June 29, 2009, the Obama administration took the first steps to lift the ban, and published a proposed regulation which will remove HIV from its list of “communicable diseases of public health significance.” Once the comment period closes on August 17, HHS will review the comments and issue final regulations.

Action Alert: Tell Senators Healthcare Reform Must Include Medicaid Parity for U.S. Territories!

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:10:00

While the U.S. government covers at least 50 percent of the bill for states’ Medicaid funding, it caps the amount of Medicaid dollars it will give to U.S. territories. This discrepancy severely limits territories’ funding streams, and means that in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa, only the poorest citizens qualify for Medicaid and people, including those living with HIV/AIDS and other diseases are the ones who suffer.

This situation is a particular blow to Puerto Rico, which is dealing with an HIV/AIDS crisis. Increasing Medicaid for Puerto Rico would be a major step forward in fighting the AIDS epidemic there. Insufficient Medicaid funds force many Puerto Ricans living with AIDS to rely on programs funded by the Ryan White Care Act. Ryan White has been notoriously mismanaged on the island, a situation that has resulted in a lack of access to AIDS medications through the Ryan White-funded AIDS Drugs Assistance Program (ADAP).

In 2008, the U.S. spent approximately $20 per Medicaid participant per month in Puerto Rico, compared to $330 per participant per month in the U.S. This alarming disparity is widely acknowledged: As a candidate, Obama stated his desire to “to continually raise the cap on federal contributions to Medicaid in Puerto Rico until it disappears.”

What to do

Call Senate finance members (who are largely the ones crafting healthcare reform legislation) and tell them the U.S. territories must have full Medicaid parity!

In the House of Representatives H.R. 2680 calls “to amend the Social Security Act to provide for payment parity for Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and American Samoa under the Medicaid Program, and for other purposes.”

But in the Senate, where the territories don’t have even non-voting representation, there is no companion bill. Urge Senate finance committee members to include full healthcare parity for the U.S. territories in healthcare reform legislation, and improve the health of people in the territories.

Who to call

Max Baucus (D-MT) 202-224-2651
Chuck Grassley(R-IA) (202) 224-3744
Jeff Bingaman (D-NM) (202) 224-5521
Olympia Snowe (R-ME) (202) 224-5344
Kent Conrad (D-ND) (202) 224-2043
Mike Enzi (R-WY) (202) 224-3424

What to say

“My name is _____ and I’m calling to urge Sen. ______ to make sure health care reform legislation includes amending the Social Security Act to provide for payment parity for U.S. territories under the Medicaid Program, and for other purposes.”

Putting off the Rent

Thu, 13 Aug 2009 11:54:00

Last week, a federal judge ruled that approximately 2,200 poor New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS who reside in federally subsidized housing can no longer pursue their lawsuit against New York State and City over the amount income they must pay toward rent. Justice Frederic Block dismissed the case, Rivers v. Doar (known informally as the “30 percent rent cap case”) on the grounds of mootness, finding that the plaintiffs had won their lawsuit, and any ruling would be merely academic.

Rivers v. Doar was filed to challenge a directive by the Pataki administration in October 2006 that the State would no longer cap rent at 30 percent of income for the HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) clients living in federal Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) and Section 8 housing. Housing Works and co-counsel Matthew Brinckeroff immediately filed a lawsuit against the City and State seeking, and securing, an injunction against the illegal new policy. Shortly thereafter, Eliot Spitzer took office and his new Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) commissioner David Hansell announced that the State would no longer pursue the policy, stating in March 2007 that he was “pleased to report that [OTDA] and HRA ha[d] reached an agreement to ensure that clients in [HOPWA] housing [would] not experience any change in the 30% rent contributions they have historically made.”

Although the policy has not been re-instituted, the decision to abandon the policy is essentially a gentleman’s agreement now, notwithstanding Judge Block’s puzzling finding that the policy reversal was akin to a legislature’s repealing a statute. But Judge Block found “nothing in the record affirmatively suggesting that defendants intend to re-institute the challenged policy. By contrast, the record is replete with evidence that the policy has been officially abandoned.”

“Judge Block emphasized that the State and City ‘made a visible commitment before plaintiffs, the state legislature, and the New York public to maintain the historic 30% rent cap,’” Housing Works’ Senior Staff Attorney Armen H. Merjian explained. “We fully expect them to honor that commitment, and if they fail, they will have to face another lawsuit, and the righteous indignation of the public.”

Meanwhile, there is hope that the New York State Legislature will also make the 30 percent rent cap a part of New York law. After a passionate speech by Sen. Tom Duane last month, the State Senate passed legislation to cap rent for people with HIV/AIDS at 30 percent of their income. This legislation would not only solidify the status of those in HOPWA housing, but would also extend the protection to HASA clients who receive no federal money towards their rent. The lack of a 30 percent rent cap for HASA housing means that many New Yorkers with AIDS are living on as little as $12 a day.

The rent cap bill still must pass the Assembly and even if it does, Gov. David Paterson has already stated his unwillingness to sign bills with new costs attached. But the rent cap bill could save the State money. An analysis by Shubert Botein Policy Associates estimated that direct savings of over $19 million from prevented evictions would easily outweigh the projected costs of $16 million for the 30 percent rent cap.

photo credit: New York City AIDS Housing Network

Ryan White Must be Extended—Then Fixed

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:35:00

The current Ryan White Care Act is up for reauthorization on September 30. So Congress must take action ASAP to make sure the Ryan White CARE Act is extended—and Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius must put pressure on them to do so (see action alert below, for who to call and what to say). But while Housing Works supports the fixes recommended by many in the AIDS advocacy community for this year, Housing Works differs from the “community consensus” in that we believe one year is long enough to hold onto the status quo. Ryan White CARE Act must be fully revised in 2010. A recent Government Accountability Office report notes some of the funding inequeties in Ryan White.

The current Ryan White Care Act is up for reauthorization on September 30. So Congress must take action ASAP to make sure the Ryan White CARE Act is extended—and Obama and Health and Human Services Secretary Sebelius must put pressure on them to do so (see action alert below, for who to call and what to say). But while Housing Works supports the fixes recommended by many in the AIDS advocacy community for this year, Housing Works differs from the “community consensus” in that we believe one year is long enough to hold onto the status quo, not the three years being recommended by others. Ryan White CARE Act must be fully revised in 2010. A recent Government Accountability Office report notes some of the funding inequeties in Ryan White.

The GAO report, in response to a request by Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), explains the stop-loss provision for urban areas that receive funding under the CARE Act. The stop-loss provision serves to minimize the losses in funding to cities that have long grappled with the AIDS epidemic such as San Francisco, New York, and Ponce, Puerto Rico, but also limits increases in funding elsewhere where people are incredibly underserved.

Ryan White’s distribution—essentially pork barrel funding—is a politically touchy situation that brings up the hot-button issues about how to address the changing geography of new HIV infections, without taking away services that many people have come to depend on (particularly in California which was brutalized by severe cuts to HIV/AIDS services). And because spending levels have not kept pace with the growing number of Americans living with HIV/AIDS, juristdictions are left to fight among themselves for a not-big-enough pie.

And while these problems will not be addressed by September 30, we cannot afford to maintain the status quo with Ryan White for another three years.

“Strategically the community took a gamble by not addressing real changes needed for Ryan White over the last 15 months,” said Housing Works Vice President of National Advocacy and Organizing Christine Campbell. “Ryan White has serious problems that need to be addressed. We need to move Ryan White on a parallel track with health care reform and the National AIDS Strategy, not just wait to see what happens.”

Within the next year, community-based organizations must have a clear understanding of how health care reform will impact their service delivery and have processes in place to make the systemic changes to adequately meet the needs of people living with HIV/AIDS.

But here’s what to do now

While revamping Ryan White deserves some serious discussion, that will have to wait until October 1. Right now, Ryan White needs to be extended for another year, so that thousands of people with HIV/AIDS continue to receive medical services and care.

The Obama Administration has not publicly stated that extension of the Ryan White Program is an urgent priority. President Obama and HHS Secretary Sebelius must tell Congress to extend Ryan White for one year.

Call the White House at 202-456-1414 and Secretary Sebelius at 202-690-7000. Use the talking points in this alert and tell President Obama and Secretary Sebelius why the timely extension of the Ryan White Program is important to you.

1) My name is _____ and I’m from (city/state). The Ryan White Program is critical for people living with HIV/AIDS. Its extension before September 30, 2009 is a top priority for the HIV/AIDS community.
2) The Ryan White Program provides essential medical and support services to hundreds of thousands of individuals each year. The services are a critical part of our health care safety net and will continue to be necessary in a reformed health care system.
3) President Obama must tell Congress that this is a priority for his Administration and Congress must act to extend the Ryan White CARE Act before September 30, 2009.

(See AIDS Action’s full alert for more information.)

Housing Works Thrift Shops Announces New Members on its Board of Directors

Wed, 12 Aug 2009 11:29:00

Housing Works Thrift Shops, Inc. announced today the new members of its Board of Directors. The Board of Directors oversees the workings of Housing Works’ nine upscale Thrift Shops and online store (Shophousingworks.com), which generate millions in funding for Housing Works services for homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS.

Juan J. Herrera (board chair) is Vice President of MTV Networks’ Office of Global Inclusion. He works with senior management to create and implement internal employee development and retention initiatives and advises the company on sponsorship and partnership opportunities with external organizations. He also designs and implements strategic approaches to help internal stakeholders attract diverse talent and meet their business objectives. Herrera graduated from the University of Arizona with a B.A. in Political Science.

David Alport is an entrepreneur, strategist and creative thinker. For the past six years, Alport has provided strategic consulting services, primarily to the travel industry. He also created, built and sold the groundbreaking OUT & ABOUT, a travel information publication, guidebook and website for gay and lesbian travelers. Alport is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Brown University, with a BA in Psychology.

Michael Carl is the fashion director of Allure where he oversees the magazine’s fashion pages. He also writes Allure’s popular “Fashion Bulletin” and twice a year reports from the European shows. Carl has appeared on national and local television and is frequently interviewed by newspapers across the country. Prior to joining Allure, Carl worked at Jane, Nylon, and Interview.

Ken Fleishman is Vice President of Sales for the DKNY JEANS and DKNY Men’s brands where he goes by his given nickname, the King of Denim. A fashion apparel executive with over 20 years of retail and wholesale experience, Fleishman began his career at Saks Fifth Avenue. Fleishman received his BA in English at Bucknell University in 1987.

Brenda Garrand has had a marketing communications career spanning nearly 25 years. She is president and strategic director of the marketing firm Garrand and a nationally recognized branding expert. She was appointed by President Clinton as his Maine delegate to the White House Conference on Small Business in 1996. Brenda is a graduate of Bates College and received her Masters Degree in Advertising from Syracuse University in 2009.

Joe Magnone has been dedicated to Housing Work’s mission for over 12 years as a volunteer and former employee. Magnone recently united Housing Works with celebrity Robert Verdi for Verdi’s reality TV show “The Robert Verdi Event,” which will feature Housing Works in an episode. Magnone is also cofounder of Trinity Angels, a New York based charity that helps smaller charities and shelters around New York acquire funding by holding social events.

Matt Marden is a senior market editor for Details. Having worked for Town & Country as an associate editor and as a freelance stylist and market editor, Marden brings years of valuable fashion experience to the board. He received a BA in art history from Colby College in 1995.

Paige Merkle is a men’s buyer at Bloomingdale’s. She became involved with Housing Works three years ago when she began contributing to Housing Works largest fashion fundraiser, Fashion for Action. Merkle looks forward to bringing her expertise, excitement and fresh ideas to Housing Works’ stores and special events.

Lilian Riveros has more than a dozen years of experience in advertising, working with clients such as Playtex and Accenture. As a native of Paraguay, Riveros volunteers with Pro Mujer to help Latin women in need and also devotes time as a project manager for the non-profit organization Taproot. Riveros holds a bachelor’s degree from Tufts University in International Relations and French.

Alan Sive operates an online listing service for residential real estate transactions, manages an industrial property in Pennsylvania and develops residential properties on Long Island. He worked on Wall Street for 18 years structuring real estate partnerships and advising investors on real estate-related stocks. Sive has an architectural degree from the Architectural Association School in London and an MBA (Finance) from Columbia University.

Continuing members of the Housing Works board:

Michael Gordon has been a member of the Board since 2007. He is a litigation partner in the New York office of Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP. Gordon is a member of the New York and New Jersey State Bars and regularly provides legal counsel to Housing Works Thrift Shops.

Norma Reinhardt Mascarotti has volunteered two days a week for the last seven years at the Gramercy location where she curates the jewelry case and has a faithful following of jewelry customers. A retired fashion industry veteran, she worked as a buyer for Federated Department Stores and was vice president of Wacoal Intimate Apparel and Westchester Lace Corporation.

ABOUT HOUSING WORKS
Housing Works is the largest community-based AIDS service organization in the United States, as well as the nation’s largest minority-controlled AIDS service organization. Since 1990, we have provided lifesaving services to more than 20,000 homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS. Housing Works Thrift Shops and other businesses provide million in funding for those services. For more information visit www.housingworks.org

Charlotte Ronson and Shoshanna Gruss Cohost “Editor’s Choice” with Allure’s Michael Carl

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 14:54:00

Summer came late to New York this year, which is why we’re refusing to go quietly! For this month’s installment of our popular Editor’s Choice series, Allure Fashion Director and Housing Works Board Member Michael Carl is hosting a “Last Days of Summer” one-night-only charity shopping event. We will fill our glamorous new Tribeca location with stylish beach wear, bathing suits and beach accessories handpicked by Carl.

Carl will be on hand to give fashion advice at the event, as will his cohosts, designers Charlotte Ronson and Shoshanna Gruss, who are also donating a variety of summer sweet things, including shoes and bathing suits. “I’m so excited to host my first Housing Works event as a board member in the company of Charlotte and Shoshanna. We’re going to celebrate the summer while raising money for Housing Works’ mission to fight AIDS in New York.”

While you enjoy light food and drinks, browse Carl’s carefully edited collection of beach items, such as Gucci bowling shoes, a Sunner silk cream dress, a Robert Graham cotton brocade blazer and Marc by Marc Jacobs white jeans (size 32).

“Last Days of Summer Editor’s Choice” event information:
WHERE: Housing Works Tribeca Thrift Shop, 119 Chambers St. between Church St and West Broadway
WHEN: Tuesday, August 25, from 6 to 9pm
COST: FREE and open to the public
BENEFITS: Housing Works, the largest community-based AIDS service organization in the United States. Since 1990, we have provided lifesaving services to more than 20,000 homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS.

AIDS Activists Rally This Sunday To Support Lifting U.S. Ban On HIV-Positive Immigrants and Visitors

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:56:00

Contact:
British Columbia Martin Rooney, (604) 584-6475; rally@martinstorm.com;
Niagara: Doulton Wiltshire, (905) 984-8684 ext 110; dwiltshire@aidsniagara.com
U.S: Diana Scholl, (917)402-2576; d.scholl@housingworks.org

WHAT: Coordinated rallies in U.S./Canadian border towns in support of lifting the despicable U.S. ban on HIV-positive immigrants and visitors. HIV-positive U.S. residents will cross from Canada to the U.S to emphasize the discriminatory nature of the ban.

WHY: The Obama administration has proposed lifting the two-decades-old ban on people living with HIV entering the U.S. Earlier this summer, up to 60 Canadians living with HIV planning to attend an AIDS conference in Washington, D.C. were barred from entering the U.S. because of the ban. The U.S. is very close to lifting this ban; national and international voices are needed to ensure that this is done.

WHERE: Peace Arch Park, Surrey, British, Columbia, the last stop before the Canadian U.S. border AND Central Avenue, Fort Erie – QEW Overpass across the bridge to Buffalo, New York.

WHEN: The Surrey, BC event takes place August 16 from 10:30 am to 1:30 pm.
The Buffalo event takes place on Aug. 16 from 2:30 pm to 3:15 pm.

WHO: Hundreds of people living with HIV and their supporters from Canada and the U.S. Speakers at the Surrey, BC event include Surrey Mayor Barinder Rasode and Vancouver Centre Member of Parliament Dr. Hedy Fry. Speakers at the Fort Erie event include representatives from local AIDS Service Organizations from both Canada and the United States.

Participating organizations include: Canada: Egale, BCGEU, OISRCS, CUPW, CUPE 402, Rona Gaysurrey.com, Dab the AIDS Bear Project, Xtra West, Indie Rock Band Fairfire AIDS Niagara, AIDS Action Now; Canadian AIDS Society, Bruce House, Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network, Black Coalition for AIDS Prevention. U.S.: Housing Works, AIDS Community Services – (ACS), Campaign to End AIDS, AIDS Network of Western New York, Bailey House, CitiWide Harm Reduction, NYCAHN

José Ortiz: Job Training Alum Helps Thrift Shops Run

Mon, 10 Aug 2009 12:45:01

Your support of Housing Works’ thriving businesses—check out our beautiful new Tribeca Thrift Shop location —not only raises money for our lifesaving HIV/AIDS services but provides life-changing jobs to Housing Works clients.

When José Ortiz was released from prison in 1996, he was HIV-positive, addicted to drugs and homeless. Ortiz became a Housing Works client and eventually enrolled in our Second Life Job Training Program (JTP). He has been a valued sales associate and donations sorter at Housing Works Thrift Shops for the last 11 years.

What Really Brought Down a Queens Shelter

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:55:01

This month’s dust-up in Elmhurst, Queens over a proposed commercial SRO had all the elements of good old-fashioned AIDSphobic urban tussle. Residents, in a display of Not-in-My-Backyardism, protested. Council members got involved, attending meetings where community members voiced outrage and a protest with cute neighborhood kids. The New York Daily News reported the outrage. And then the HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) decided not to refer clients to the SRO.

But sources familiar with the situation say that the reality of the disheartening situation isn’t quite as it appears. The Human Resources Administration (HRA), which oversees HASA, is not referring clients to a Queens shelter not because of community hysteria but because the Queens Alliance, the organization running the shelter, violated its Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) by revealing that the new facility would be housing HIV-positive people.

An Open letter to the Elmhurst community handed out at a July 1 community meeting from the Queens Alliance board of directors answering questions about the shelter stated:

Q: Is the 58th Avenue Emergency Shelter an HIV/AIDS treatment center?
A: No. There are no medical treatments on site. Only HIV/AIDS positive individuals who are asymptomatic may be referred to this facility.
Q Whom do you serve?
A: Adults needing simple emergency shelter owing to various life hardships. These are persons referred
by the City of New York Human Resources Administration, and others. Look around the room now,
the faces you see. Please remember that some of them, if befallen with problems some day, could be
located temporarily at the 58th Avenue facility.

Queens Alliance Vice President and Board of Directors member Yolanda Martin-Garibaldi said that she was unaware of the letter although she she was at the July 1 meeting where it was handed out.” “That was a letter sent by the attorney. We can’t say that there are HIV-positive clients. I wouldn’t do that.”

A later version of the letter omitted the sentence “Only HIV/AIDS positive individuals who are asymptomatic may be referred to this facility.” But the damage had already been done and the letter, in addition to the citywide media coverage, caused HRA to renege on the contract.

“It seems HASA did the right thing if they did cancel the contract. Queens Alliance crossed a boundary by discussing the HIV status of potential residents,” said New York City AIDS Housing Network (NYCAHN)Executive Director Sean Barry.

Classic NIMBY

But Barry noted, a more disturbing part of this story is the reaction of the neighbors to the proposed shelter, which was to be in an underserved area.

“Any time there’s a NIMBY reaction that fails to recognize the need for housing the homeless, that’s frustrating. What’s straight-up nauseating is that this is a case of AIDSphobia in 2009,” Barry said. It’s unclear if the community was reacting against the fact that they didn’t want people with HIV living there or if there were other factors involved. The way it’s been portrayed is homeless people with HIV. There’s no place for any form of prejudice against homeless people in this society.”

Carl Stubbs, a member of NYCAHN who lives in Queens, said the community members were going off misguided prjeduices. “People don’t understand and aren’t educated,” he said.

Rosemarie Daraio, president of Communities of Maspeth and Elmhurst Together association, said that outrage about the shelter had nothing to do with AIDSphobia and the neighbors were upset because they didn’t want another public housing facility, where there was a house for people with mental disabilities across the street. “They feel that one facility on the block is sufficient and are concerned with the oversaturation on one block. And God forbid there could be altercations between the two houses,” Daraio said.

And local politicians validated the neighbors’ concerns. Councilmember Melinda Katz sent a representative from her office to the neighbors’ rally, and Councilmember Elizabeth Crowley, who, although she doesn’t represent the neighborhood, said at a rally, “I’m on the community’s side. This, from what we know of right now, is not good for our community. We demand answers.”

See Crowley at the rally:

In an e-mail to the Queens Tribune, Crowley said “I think communication is important and making sure all sides are talking through problems will go a long way to making this facility something we can all embrace, and Council Member Katz is working on it.”

Ben Branham, a spokesperson for Katz’s campaign for City Comptroller, said Katz didn’t endorse the community outrage but that “it’s the job of a council person to represent anyone in the district.” He added, ““It’s a situation where people got angry, and it was frustrating to see such opposition emerge. We want the housing in a site that works”

The Queens Alliance still has the lease for the property, and is unsure how it will proceed.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nutrichris/3710287871/in/photostream/

Robin Strasser of “One Life to Live” Gives Her Time—and Glamorous Clothes to Housing Works

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 13:50:00

Ever wonder what it would be like to step into the gown of an Emmy-winning actress? Now is your chance to find out! On Sunday, August 16, come meet Robin Strasser at Housing Works’ 77th St. Thrift Shop. Strasser, who has played the glamorous Dorian Lord on One Life to Live for an amazing 30 years, has generously donated a full rack of clothes and truckload of furniture to Housing Works, and on Sunday, she’ll be posing for pictures with fans and telling personal stories behind each item.

The soap’s star donations include one-of-a-kind items like a gorgeous Paris-made, two-piece gown that she only wore once—at the 2005 Daytime Emmy Awards!

“I’m bringing it on…with my own furniture, clothing and costumes! You’ve only got ‘One Life To Give’ and 100 per cent of anything you buy goes to keeping the good work of Housing Works working,” Strasser says.

For those who can’t make the in-store event, Housing Works will also auction some of Strasser’s donated items online. Starting Aug. 12, you can bid on a selection of Strasser’s donations at Shophousingworks.com and see the online auction items in the window of the 77th St store. The online auction closes at 7pm on August 24.

EVENT INFO FOR LISTINGS:
What: In-store appearance by One Life to Live‘s Robin Strasser
When: Sunday, August 16, 1pm to 3pm
Where: Housing Works Upper East Side Thrift Shop, 202 East 77th St, betw 2nd and 3rd Ave
Cost: FREE!
Benefits: Housing Works, the largest community-based AIDS service organization in the United States. Since 1990, we have provided lifesaving services to more than 20,000 homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS.
CONTACT: Diana Scholl; d.scholl@housingworks.org; 914-582-8593

Now’s the Time to Lift the Travel Ban

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 10:56:01

Last month, the Obama administration moved toward lifting the U.S. travel and immigration ban, and if all goes according to plan, this discriminatory policy will soon be as dead as the man who championed it.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention needs to hear your comments on the proposal to lift the ban by August 17 (see below). And on August 16, it’s the International Day of Action to Lift the U.S. HIV Travel Ban. If you’re any where near Toronto/Buffalo or Surrey, British Columbia, you can rally in support of the ban’s last gasp!

At the rallies in Surrey and Fort Erie (near Toronto), Ontario, HIV-positive Americans will walk over the border to Canada. They will of course have to leave their Canadian brothers and sisters behind, thanks to the discriminatory ban.

Martin Rooney, who is spearheading the action in Surrey, became passionately committed to ending the travel ban when he was stopped at the border entering the United States from Canada in November 2007 and was questioned about his HIV status. Rooney was told that, despite violating the law ban on HIV-positive travelers, he could enter the country by paying for a $130 waiver. Rooney objected on principle.

“Either I’m a threat to the U.S. or I’m not, and $130 shouldn’t change that,” Rooney said. Rooney said he looks forward to visiting the United States once again to continue charity work at an organization, the AIDS Tijuana Fund. He hopes that having the rally the day before the public comment period ends will remind people to take action.

“I view this rally as an opportunity to educate Americans and Canadians about the existence of the ban, and for the U.S. to move through this process quickly,” Rooney said.

For more information about the Surrey rally, contact Rooney at rally@martinstorm.com. For more information on the Niagara rally contact Doulton Wiltshire at dwiltshire@aidsniagara.com

Comment away

If you can’t make it up to the border, show your support by submitting a comment in favor of the proposed ban fix. Check out other comments, on the CDC website, including calls to lift the ban by the EU HIV/AIDS Civil Society Forum, the World Federation of Hemophilia, National Association of People With AIDS, Immigration Equality, Gay Men’s Health Crisis and hundreds of other international organizations and concerned individuals.

If you have writer’s block, the National AIDS Housing Coalition (NAHC) submitted a comment that you are encouraged to pull from (in fact, duplicate comments are encouraged because it speeds up the feds’ review time). NAHC became deeply involved with the call to lift the travel ban after 60 Canadians were barred from coming to Washington, D.C. to attend the North American Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit.

Some of the important points to highlight in your commentary:

There is no scientific or public health justification for the ban.

Restrictions based on entry, stay and residence based on HIV status are discriminatory.

Restrictions based on entry, stay and residence based on HIV status, can, and do violate human rights.

Restrictions based on entry, stay and residence based on HIV status can impede effective responses to HIV.

The cost to the American taxpayers will be much less than the CDC/HHS regulation suggests.

Submit comments electronically via the Internet to http://regulations.gov or via email to Part34HIVcomments@cdc.gov

Three Ways to Shape Healthcare Reform

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 08:29:00

As conservatives loudly birddog townhalls, we supporters of healthcare reform need to speak up and call on Congress to institute meaningful healthcare change, with expanded Medicaid access!

1) Share your story about how the U.S.‘s piecemeal HIV care system has affected your health. The HIV Health Access Working Group is looking for HIV-related stories to share with the media to highlight HIV-related healthcare-reform priorities. Are you living with HIV and have unmet healthcare needs? Have you struggled with getting proper insurance coverage? Click the link above and share your story.

The Working Group is also looking for stories from allied health professionals, nurses, case managers, HIV test counselors, social workers, housing advocates, substance abuse treatment counselors, harm reduction staff, legal aid workers, and others who may or may not be living with HIV but see the healthcare inequities every day.

2) Attend a healthcare town hall meeting this month, and share your story there. There are meetings scheduled in 11 states so far by members of the House of Representatives: Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas,Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Texas. Tell your rep why health care is important to you!

3) Sign this petition from HIV Health Care Access Working Group calling for a public health plan and expanded Medicaid. The petition will be submitted to members of Congress. The petition states:

Health care reform will do little to end the widening racial, ethnic, regional and poverty related disparities in access to HIV care without:

A national public plan to provide a national standard and a stable, reliable and affordable coverage option to people with HIV across the country, regardless of where they live: A commitment to end the epidemic and secure the well-being of people with HIV in the U.S. cannot be met without a national public plan. People with HIV/AIDS in every state across the nation need healthcare coverage they can count on. People who are HIV negative need guaranteed access to comprehensive primary and preventative care to remain uninfected. A meaningful public plan option will set a comprehensive standard for benefits coverage and affordability across the country; take advantage of economies of scale to lower costs for prescription drugs and other services; and create a competitive system based on quality rather than profit.

A federally funded expansion of Medicaid coverage to all low-income individuals up to 200% of the federal poverty level: [1] Medicaid serves as a lifeline for the people with AIDS that qualify for coverage. The cost sharing protections and benefits package tailored to low income individuals are vital to ensure access to HIV care and treatment. The current eligibility rules bar most people with HIV from Medicaid coverage until they develop AIDS and are disabled and living on very low incomes of around $674 a month. Without Medicaid coverage, many people with HIV lack reliable access to the treatment necessary to keep them healthy and prevent progression to AIDS. As an interim measure, we urge to immediately adopt the Early Treatment for HIV Act to allow states the option of covering people with HIV regardless of disability status until a full expansion is implemented.

Patching Up PACHA

Thu, 06 Aug 2009 05:48:00

On Tuesday the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) revised its charter and terminated the memberships of all existing members, paving the way for a more diverse organization with the potential to influence the White House.

A spokesperson from HHS wouldn’t comment on the board shakeup but said, “With the recent expiration of the PACHA charter and the President’s National Strategy on HIV/AIDS being rolled out soon, it seemed like a natural time to reconstitute the President’s Advisory Council.”

Despite its name, during the Bush Administration, PACHA only advised Health and Human Services (HHS), not the White House. During the Clinton administration, PACHA had more influence than it did in the Bush years. It met regularly not only with HHS Secretary Donna Shalala but President Clinton himself. While under the new charter PACHA will still only advise the HHS Secretary, PACHA’s executive director will be appointed by the HHS Secretary in consultation with the White House’s Director of National AIDS Policy.

That means HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will work with ONAP head Jeffrey Crowley to select PACHA’s executive director.

“This will hopefully increase the influence of PACHA,” said Carl Schmid, a former PACHA member appointed by George W. Bush who received his termination notice this week in a letter from Sebelius. “I’d always have to ask the PACHA staff if they sent our resolutions to the White House. They said they did, but who knows?”

Some other changes in the new charter include expanding the membership from 21 to 25 people; increasing meetings from two to three times a year (budget permitting); and calling on PACHA to advise on “matters related to address HIV-related health disparities” and “provide global leadership in responding to the HIV pandemic and expand access to treatment, care, and prevention for people infected with and affected by HIV/AIDS around the world.”

PACHA has potential to be important as the administration starts creating a National AIDS Strategy. Crowley has stated on numerous occasions that federal law prohibits him from convening regularly scheduled advisory panels at whim, but PACHA’s advice is mandated by federal law.

Some departing members were disappointed.

“It was a very positive and wonderful organization. The principle problem was during the last year there was no HHS Secretary,” said Robert Kauffman, an attorney who was a PACHA member. “I’m just interested to see what they do next.”

Diversifying membership

Many AIDS advocates hope that the new charter will be an opportunity to diversify PACHA membership. The most recent PACHA board was appointed by President George W. Bush and composed of mostly researchers. There were only two or three people with AIDS among its 21 members and two or three gay people. There was also no representation from state government. Although Bush kept Clinton’s appointees until their terms expired, it appears the Obama administration wanted a fresh start.

“I encourage Secretary Sebelius to make sure that PACHA’s membership reflects the diversity of those affected by the AIDS epidemic,” said Housing Works Vice President of National Advocacy and Organizing Christine Campbell.

Puerto Rico Goes to Washington

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:12:00

Puerto Rican AIDS advocates met with Congress and the White House last week to ensure that (contrary to the status quo) the territory isn’t left out of healthcare reform. They spoke out about about disparities in housing, access to drug treatment, the Ryan White Care Act— and the federal Medicaid cap that dramatically limits health care on the island.

The delegation, which included representatives from CAIM, Amor Que Sana and Housing Works, as well as independent Puerto Rican activists, scored small but important victories. After meeting with the advocates, the White House announced that Puerto Rico will be a location for one of its fall town hall meetings to gather community perspective on the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. (Other locations will be Washington, D.C., New York City, San Francisco, Oakland, Los Angeles, Houston, Albuquerque, Mississippi, Ft. Lauderdale, Minneapolis, Columbia, South Carolina and the Virgin Islands.)

And a meeting with Health and Human Services (HHS) ended with Christopher Bates, director of HHS’ Office of HIV/AIDS Policy, promising to produce a needs assessment on how money is being provided and how it’s being delivered in Puerto Rico.

The group’s meeting with Housing and Urban Development (HUD) was also productive. All of the approximately $20 million in U.S. AIDS housing funding goes through the Puerto Rican government, but government mismanagement has made reimbursement difficult for housing providers. The Puerto Rican delegation is providing a list of grievances that HUD promised it will address.

“It was important to be able to explain to our policymakers how desperate and complicated the issue of drug treatment and HIV and homelessness is in Puerto Rico,” said Rafael Torruella, an expert on the Puerto Rico AIDS crisis who participated in the lobby visits.

The delegation also met with Rep. Donna Christen-Christiansen; representatives from Puerto Rico’s Resident Commissioner Pedro Pierluisi’s office; and representatives from the offices of Sen. Max Baucus and Reps. Nydia Velazquez and José Serrano.

The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico contributes approximately $1.7 billion per year toward Medicaid. The U.S. government caps its Medicaid spending in Puerto Rico at approximately $250 million per year, eight percent of the total cost of the program. No such cap applies in the 50 states, where the minimum amount the U.S. government pays is 50 percent. In 2008, the U.S. spent approximately $20 per Medicaid participant per month in Puerto Rico, compared to $330 per participant per month in the U.S.

Where is Pierluisi?

The advocates were disappointed by their meeting with Pierluisi’s office, whom they originally assumed would share their outrage at the lack of health care in Puerto Rico. But they were told that Pierluisi wasn’t committed to lifting the cap on Medicaid funding. He is, however, calling for a bill attached to health care reform that would triple the cap and also signed on to a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi calling on Congress to treat Puerto Rico and other territories like a state in health care reform.

“I feel I don’t have a real representative who can serve as a spokesperson. Mr. Pierlusi is supposed to be there, but he doesn’t know anything about our concerns,” said Francisco Rodriguez, director of Amor Que Sana, an AIDS service organization in Ponce, Puerto Rico.

More NAPWA Departures

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:46:01

A week after expressing concerns in an Update story about the direction of the National Association of People with AIDS, Housing Works National Organizer Larry Bryant was voted off the organization’s board of directors. Fellow board member K. Mary Hess resigned in protest of Bryant’s dismissal. Hess was one of two board members who voted against pushing Bryant off the board.

“I think Larry had a valid opinion and a valid voice. I think this whole thing took a couple of turns. Everyone should have communicated better with each other,” Hess said. Hess is president of Minority Healthcare Communications, which runs the National Conference of Latinos and AIDS and the National Conference of African-Americans and AIDS.

Bryant said he was unsurprised by NAPWA’s response to criticism and still hopes that NAPWA works to expand its grassroots efforts and increases the diversity of its board.

“This is not about me. NAPWA’s own visibility, actions and outcomes is what they will be judged on,” Bryant said.

The day before NAPWA’s board meeting, some board members canvassed others by telephone regarding booting Bryant for allegedly violating the board’s confidentiality agreement in the Update article. A board member called Bryant and told him he would be voted off the next day.

The confidentiality claim is questionable. Bryant’s quote in the Update article didn’t reveal any information about NAPWA. Bryant was quoted commenting on the resignation of former board chair David Munar, saying, “To see David walk away is a significant blow to the organization and its purpose. NAPWA is the one group that’s made up of PWAs, but it doesn’t seem like its goal to [represent us] is being truly addressed. It’s one thing to address AIDS policies, but we jump right over people’s actual day-to-day concerns. As a Black man living with HIV, if I were involved with an issue of criminalization, who would I call?”

“NAPWA Responds to Recent Attacks”

While Bryant didn’t serve as Housing Works’ representative on NAPWA’s board, Housing Works and NAPWA have had a public disagreement about changes to board policy. As a condition for Housing Works’ endorsement of the Denver Principles Project, Housing Works President and CEO Charles King called on NAPWA to use the Project to increase the number of unaffiliated people living with HIV from other organizations and to lessen reliance upon government and pharmaceutical funding. These concerns were shared by POZ founder Sean Strub. Strub has dissociated himself from NAPWA, although he co-conceived the Denver Principles Project.

“I don’t see removing Larry from the board as an attack on Housing Works,” King said. “I see it as an attack on independent voices of PWAs.”

NAPWA executive director Frank Oldham and NAPWA board members didn’t respond to Update inquiries about Bryant’s dismissal. However, Oldham and board chair Michelle Lopez indirectly commented on the situation in a Monday, July 27, e-mail to members entitled “NAPWA Responds to Recent Attacks on the Nation’s Oldest Organization for PLWHAs.” The email stated, “We believe it prudent to take time to respond to some recent harsh attacks against NAPWA, which erroneously suggest we’ve lost touch with those we represent.”

The e-mail continued, “Do not allow the negative comments from a very vocal minority to depress your spirit or convince you that NAPWA does not represent the needs of persons living with HIV. We are committed to the vision of the Denver Principles and to ensuring we remain the INDEPENDENT voice of people living with HIV. Now we will return to the urgent work at hand: helping to strengthen and build strong local advocacy groups for women with HIV, empowering youth with our summer Positive Youth Institute, building on our Common Threads initiative and continuing our efforts to ensure that real health care reform that serves the interests of the HIV/AIDS community is passed this year.”

Olive branch

Hess said she didn’t want to see divisions in the AIDS community and that organizations need to be working together. She offered up meeting space at one of her conferences for organizations to talk out their differences.

“We’re all one big life raft here. This is not the time to start drawing straws and chucking people off the boat,” Hess said.

A Shaky Exchange

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 14:29:00

Congressmembers head home this weekend, but AIDS advocates are determined to keep the pressure on next week to fully lift the ban on federal syringe exchange funding and allow syringe exchange funding in Washington, D.C.

Health GAP, Housing Works, CitiWide Harm Reduction, DC Fights Back and the Campaign to End AIDS are organizing a conference call Tuesday explaining the issue, which is open to anyone who is interested in seeing the U.S. provide unrestricted federal funding of syringe exchange (see details at end of story).

The House took a crucial step last week by lifting the ban, but its bill also includes a rule that would prohibit syringe exchange funding within 1,000 feet of schools, parks, swimming pools, daycare centers, and arcades. And the Senate didn’t lift the syringe exchange funding ban in their version of the Labor Health and Human Services bill.

These changes will all have to be worked out when the Senate and House bills are reconciled, and Committee Chair Tom Harkin (D-IA) told CQ Quarterly that lifting the syringe exchange ban is “a matter for conference.”

Health GAP grassroots organizer Kaytee Riek said, “That the Senate didn’t lift the ban is a really big deal but not the worst case scenario.” Riek and other activists are hopeful that the two houses will compromise on a bill allowing local jurisdictions to have control over where syringe exchanges can take place.

1,000 Feet of Trouble

The “1,000 foot amendment” is troubling. It would exclude most existing syringe exchanges from federal funding, particularly in cities. For example, all of Housing Works sites would be ineligible for federal funding.

In California, where AIDS prevention has been decimated by an additional $50 million budget cut to AIDS services, ten of the state’s 40 syringe exchange programs would be wiped out of existence without federal funding. Most of the other programs also receive some state funding and have been laying off most of their staff, closing down sites and reducing hours.

Local control is particularly important in Washington, D.C., where the 1,000 foot rule is also included in an amendment in a federal appropriation for 2010 that would prohibit the city from providing money to any needle exchange program.

There are currently 211 needle exchange programs in 34 states, all funded without federal government support (see a great map by AmFAR.)

The 1,000 foot rule would also make it incredibly challenging to set up new syringe exchange programs.

“Having any restrictions in place is like still having a federal ban,” said Jirair Ratevosian, an independent consultant working on this issue. “The point of lifting the federal ban is to have new funding, new programs, and begin to reach high risk populations.”

To learn more about what you can do to pressure your senators and representatives, you can participate in a grassroots conference call Tuesday, August 4 at 3pm ET or 8pm ET (there are two separate calls to accommodate your schedule). Call 800-505-4464, then type in the passcode 456048# when prompted. For more information contact Kaytee Riek at kaytee@healthgap.org

Guest Column: House Appropriations Bills Prove AIDS Activism Works

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:36:00

Three weeks ago, 26 AIDS activists were arrested in the Capitol Rotunda as they chanted “Congress: Housing Saves Lives! Clean Needles Work! Fight Global AIDS!” This act of civil disobedience was part of an ongoing campaign (in some ways, a 20-year campaign) to get Congress to lift the restrictive, expensive ban on federal funding for needle exchange; to provide housing for every person living with HIV/AIDS as a necessary part of treatment; and to meet our obligations to fighting global AIDS.

It appears that this campaign, including the remarkably well-organized, well-publicized action has been effective. On Friday, the House of Representatives passed two key pieces of appropriations legislation: The Labor, Health, and Human Services (LHHS) Appropriations Bill, and the Transportation and Housing and Urban Development Appropriations Bill.

The LHHS bill that was passed removes the language banning federal funding for syringe exchange, although it contains a harmful restriction limiting the locations of syringe exchange programs that must be removed. The Transportation and HUD bill includes a $40 million increase in funding for Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA), bringing the total HOPWA funding to $350 million, just short of what AIDS activists had demanded. It also includes $40 million more than what President Obama had recommended. His proposed budget flat-funded HOPWA.

These are huge wins for the AIDS movement. We should be incredibly proud of all the hard work we’ve done over the last months and years: The work is paying off. We have mobilized the increasingly large and diverse infected and affected community; we have put increasing pressure on the people with power to make changes by working tirelessly within and outside the political system; and we’ve put politicians in place who are sympathetic to our demands. Clearly, it’s working, and it’s time for big wins on AIDS policy.

On the other hand, the victory was far from perfect. The U.S. is billions of dollars away from meeting our commitment to the Global Fund for AIDS, TB, and Malaria. While the House’s version of the LHHS bill lifts the syringe exchange funding ban, it has placed restrictions on where syringe exchanges can take place that will make it virtually impossible to receive federal funding for an urban syringe exchange. And funding for HOPWA is still $10 million short of where it needs to be.

Jose de Marco, a member of ACT UP Philadelphia and director of Proyecto Sol, put it best when he said, “After 20 years of fighting to stop HIV infections from the lack of access to clean syringes, this is backhanded slap to add restrictions that will stop proven and effective HIV prevention.”

AIDS activists will need to continue to fight for unrestricted funding for syringe exchange and full funding for global AIDS programs and HIV/AIDS housing. The Senate still needs to pass legislation that increases funding for global AIDS and AIDS housing, and lifts the ban on funding syringe exchange—not to mention that the House and Senate need to pass good health care reform that includes HIV prevention and early treatment, as well as ending disparities in access to health care. But the successes in the House prove that when people get together and demand policy change, we can win major victories.

As MSNBC commentator Rachel Maddow points out in response to the Capitol Rotunda protest, “one mystery of the first six months of the Obama administration has been solved: Turns out the left isn’t going quietly after all.”

Max October is a member of ACT UP Philadelphia whose banner was arrested while he was stuck in Philly doing technical support for the 26 arrested activists.

Sarandon’s Shmatte, Chloe’s Fridge Find New Home in Tribeca as Housing Works Expands

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:29:00

“Here’s one winner of the Big Bad Recession: Housing Works…”

Strong Sales Prompt Housing Works Tribeca to Move to Huge New Location

Mon, 27 Jul 2009 13:58:00

On Friday, July 31, Housing Works Thrift Shops thriving Tribeca location will officially move from 72 Warren St. to nearby 119 Chambers St (between West Broadway and Church St). The stunning art gallery-like location is four times the size of the old store, allowing Housing Works to sell even more of the top-quality clothing, accessories and furniture for which the upscale charity chain is so famous.

Housing Works will not be closing or changing its weekly hours to accommodate the move. The Tribeca store is open Monday-Saturday from 10am-7pm and Sunday from 12-5pm.

Housing Works Thrift Shops President Richard Vorisek says, “In less than six months, we’ve outgrown our original Tribeca location and, due to exceptional sales, we’re moving into a space that’s four times as large. The neighborhood donations have been strong and we’ve found a welcome home in Tribeca.”

The Tribeca store has been an instant success, thanks in part to donations from high-profile Housing Works fans such as Chloe Sevigny, Susan Sarandon and cast members of Bravo’s ‘Real Housewives of New York.’

To celebrate the grand opening of the new location, the Tribeca store will host the August edition of our popular Editors’ Choice monthly shopping evenings. On August 25, from 7pm to 9pm, Allure fashion director and Housing Works board member Michael Carl will present “Hot Days of Summer,” a one-night only shopping event featuring gorgeous bikinis and light, easy beach wear. Plus, enjoy ice cream and beach food!

About Housing Works:
Housing Works is the largest community-based AIDS service organization in the United States. Since 1990, we have provided lifesaving services to more than 20,000 homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS. For more information visit www.housingworks.org

Wailin’ Over Whalen

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:11:00

Last Thursday, Gov. Paterson announced the resignation of State Director of Operations David Whalen. “My plans for the future are to return to the health care sector,” Whalen told the Update. Whalen declined to be more specific about his next step and said that his temporary or permanent successor had not been chosen (although there has been speculation).

Healthcare advocates and colleagues were unanimous in their praise for Whalen, who served not only as a shaper of health policy at the highest level but as an unprecedented government access point for community-based health organizations.

Whalen was instrumental in shepherding the campaign for Medicaid reform begun under former Gov. Spitzer and brought to fruition under Gov. Paterson. “Dennis led the charge to develop and carry out that mission,” said Lara Kassel, coordinator for Medicaid Matters. “Medicaid dollars are spent in a more equitable and efficient way because of him.”

Kassel and others found it difficult to quantify Whalen’s accomplishments after 30 years in government. “It’s hard to convey how valuable he has been. His combination of insight, expertise and experience in health care are unparalleled,” said State Medicaid Director Deborah Bachrach. “You can go to him with any issue and he will remember the history, how we got to where we are, understand the policy and political imperatives of the moment and figure how to put it all together for patients and providers—honestly, it’s true,” Bachrach said.

One accomplishment that can be attributed to Whalen of significance to the AIDS community was the creation of the AIDS Adult Day Health Care system, which allows poor people living with HIV to obtain comprehensive services in one location. “He was involved from the ground floor,” said Michael Kink, the State Senate’s chief policy adviser, who worked with Whalen for many years as a lobbyist for Housing Works. “He understood the strength of the model and facilitated conversations with the federal government and in state government. It was important high-level support for adventurous policy making.”

Frontline training

Before being appointed as Director of State Operations last year, Whalen served as Spitzer’s Deputy Secretary for Health and Human Services. He served in the Department of Health as Executive Deputy Commissioner, Director of the Office of Health Systems Management and Executive Deputy Director of the AIDS Institute.

Throughout his time in Albany, Whalen acted as an unprecedented government portal for even the humblest grassroots health care groups looking to provide services. “His door was always open to anyone. It used to be that small time advocates, grassroots advocates never really had that opportunity,” Kassel said.

One reason for Whalen’s extraordinary openness may have been his formative years at the AIDS Institute when the AIDS epidemic demanded improvisation, new approaches and collaboration with front-line community-based organizations. “It was so fast and furious then,” said Kink. “That was a training ground for the whole scope of health care. It involved prevention, emergency services, poverty and homelessness, primary care, clinic care, everything.”

Kink says Whalen’s savvy was a critical support for the AIDS Institute’s work during the Pataki administration. “The first year or two [of Pataki’s administration] was extreme. Pataki showed his willingness to play politics with race, AIDS, poverty. But over time, officials like Whalen helped Pataki understand that it wasn’t smart to play politics with some of these issues, that lives were at stake. There was an education process and Whalen was an important teacher.”

Whalen’s famously even-keeled temperament helped him survive the Albany roller coaster. Said Bachrach, “I’ve done three state budgets with him, and each was stressful in its own way. Dennis Whalen was always the guiding light. He’s the calm in the storm, almost never loses his cool. His resignation will be a tremendous loss.”

The Art of Healing

Thu, 23 Jul 2009 14:52:02

Housing Works’ Creative Arts Therapy, part of our Empowerment Wellness Program, helps clients handle the emotional challenges of living with HIV. “Art Therapy is the No. 1 most important program for me,” says client Niccolo Cataldi. Read more about Cataldi and see the beautiful collage from which the above detail is taken.

Cataldi’s art (collage) will be included in Fresh Perspectives: New visions of the human journey towards healing, an exhibit of artwork by Housing Works clients and staff at the Leslie/Lohman Gay Art Foundation at 26 Wooster Street (between Grand & Canal Streets). Attend the private opening reception on Thursday, August 6, from 6-8pm, or visit the public exhibition on August 7, from noon to 6pm. Artwork will be available for sale or by silent auction. Proceeds benefit Housing Works.

To RSVP to the private reception or for more information, contact Diana Gongora at d.gongora@housingworks.org.

Art Therapy is just one part of a comprehensive array of Housing Works holistic health care services. Support Housing Works and all we do to help New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS by making an additional gift now.

Redial!

Wed, 22 Jul 2009 11:54:01

Two major AIDS issues that we alerted you to earlier this week were still in limbo on Capitol Hill. Please take five minutes to call your Congressmen about these critical pieces of AIDS funding legislation!

Action Alert No. 1!: Extending Ryan White AIDS Funding

The House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce is addressing the extension of the Ryan White Modernization Act of 2006. The bill, the single most important source of federal AIDS funding, sunsets at the end of September and the committee appears to be on the right track: There is talk of reauthorizing Ryan White for just one year. During that time, the legislation can be effectively integrated into impending health care reform and the National AIDS Strategy; otherwise we may be locked into an inefficient and outdated bill. (For more, read this eloquent letter from Campaign to End AIDS National Secretary Marsha Jones to committee chair Waxman and ranking member Joe Barton of Texas).

Unfortunately Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA) wants to extend Ryan White for three years, without any of some desperately need fixes, such as a “hold harmless” clause that would guarantee that existing Ryan White grantees keep getting their funding as the health care reform landscape shifts.

Everyone should call Representatives Waxman and Neal and if you reside in the districts of any of the following legislators, call them today! Here is a script you can use: “My name is _____ . I’m calling to request that Representative ______ work with Energy and Commerce Committee to extend the Ryan White Modernization Act of 2006 for just one year, so that it can function in concert with health care reform and the National AIDS Strategy. Extending this legislation for three years would put people living with HIV/AIDS at a disadvantage as these other crucial efforts move forward and Ryan White remains stagnant.”

Find out who your House Reps are here
Contact your Representative through the Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Arkansas: Mike Ross
Arizona: John B. Shadegg
California: Henry A. Waxman (Chair); Lois Capps; Anna G. Eshoo; Jane Harman; Mary Bono Mack; Doris O. Matsui; Jerry McNerney, George Radanovich
Colorado: Diana DeGette
Connecticut: Christopher S. Murphy
Florida: Cliff Stearns, Kathy Castor
Georgia: Nathan Deal; John Barrow, Phil Gingrey
Illinois: Bobby L. Rush; John Shimkus, Jan Schakowsky
Iowa: Bruce L. Braley
Indiana: Steve Buyer, Baron P. Hill
Kentucky: Ed Whitfield
Louisiana: Steve Scalise, Charlie Melancon
Maryland: John P. Sarbanes
Massachusetts: Edward J. Markey
Michigan: Tammy Baldwin, Fred Upton, John D. Dingell, Bart Stupak, Mike Rogers
Missouri: Roy Blunt
Nebraska: Lee Terry
New Jersey: Frank Pallone, Jr
New York: Eliot L. Engel, Anthony D. Weiner
North Carolina: Sue Wilkins Myrick, G.K. Butterfield
Ohio: Zachary T. Space, Betty Sutton
Oklahoma: John Sullivan
Oregon: Greg Walden
Pennsylvania: Joseph R. Pitts, Mike Doyle, Tim Murphy
Tennessee: Bart Gordon, Marsha Blackburn
Texas: Joe Barton, Ralph M. Hall, Gene Green, Charles A. Gonzalez, Michael C. Burgess
Utah: Jim Matheson
Vermont: Peter Welch
Virginia: Rick Boucher
Washington: Jay Inslee
Virgin Islands: Donna M. Christensen

Action Alert No. 2!: Pass a “Clean” Needle Exchange Bill
AIDS advocates were ecstatic last week, when after a powerful demo in the Capitol, House Dems announced they wanted to lift the senseless ban on federal funding for syringe exchange programs, proven to dramatically reduce the spread of HIV. However, that ecstasy faded once we saw the fine print, mandating that the exchanges must not operate within 1,000 feet of places such as schools, parks, swimming pools, daycare centers, arcades and other common locales. Everyone should call his or her Representative today and say, “I support federal funding for syringe exchange, which saves lives! Please lift the ban on federal funding without overly strict restrictions, such as the ’1,000 feet away’ limitations.”

Find out who your House Reps are here
Contact your Representative through the Capitol switchboard: (202) 224-3121

Needle-exchange Fight Goes Global

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:41:00

Capitalizing on the momentum around lifting the federal ban on syringe exchange funding, a coalition of AIDS advocates are ramping up the pressure on the Obama administration to reverse the Bush-era policy that bans the use of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) funding for syringe exchange programs.

Ten days after 26 activists were arrested at the U.S. Capitol over the domestic ban on syringe exchange, Health GAP, Physicians for Human Rights, the Global AIDS Alliance, Treatment Action Group and other organizations issued a joint press release this week taking President Obama to task for not honoring his public and written campaign pledges that the policy on international funding for syringe exchange would be changed.

The president’s new Global AIDS Coordinator, Dr. Eric Goosby, gave advocates a well-timed opportunity to highlight Obama’s foot-dragging when Goosby dodged questions over the syringe-exchange funding ban at the International AIDS Society meeting this week in Cape Town. According to ScienceSpeaks, Goosby, while heralding Obama’s support for syringe-exchange, asked for “a few more weeks” before addressing the issue.

“We don’t have time to be patient”

Could Goosby’s plea for more time been a reference to the impending action on the domestic ban on syringe exchange funding? Asia Russell, Health GAP’s director of international policy, says that the White House has consistently indicated that it wants action on the domestic syringe-exchange front first.

Either way, Goosby’s answer doesn’t sit well with Russell. “The international policy fix is straightforward,” she said. “Fixing the problem is little more than changing two sentences of PEPFAR. The White House has to show leadership.”

While the domestic ban on syringe exchange funding must be lifted through an act of Congress, the White House could simply provide new guidelines for PEPFAR funding.

Action from Obama is especially important because countries that receive PEPFAR funding have only a limited time to submit their plans for 2010. If the ban on funding syringe exchange is not lifted, it will be at least another year before desperately needed syringe exchange programs can be put into place internationally.

“Goosby’s answer amounted to ‘Be patient.’ But we don’t have time to be patient,” Russell said.

Housing Works President and CEO Charles King joined advocates calls for quick action. “I’m disappointed that Secretary of State Clinton has not taken the lead on this issue,” he said. “Over the years, she has stated her support for syringe exchange and said that we need to have spine. Here is yet another chance for her to show her spine.”

According to Health GAP, drug use accounts for the majority of HIV infections in dozens of countries in Asia and Eastern Europe. In many countries outside Africa, the largest number of new infections occurs among injection drug users. In addition, in several sub-Saharan African countries, injection drug use is emerging as a new source of HIV transmission.

Although PEPFAR funds are not able to be used for syringe exchange, PEPFAR does fund medication-assisted therapy (MAT) drug treatment, also known as opioid substitution therapy. The forefront of PEPFAR’s MAT work is in the Ukraine and Vietnam, where, in 2008, PEPFAR funded pilot MAT centers for injection drug users.

U.S. Territories Want In on Health Care Debate

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:07:02

Representatives of U.S. territories are quietly working behind the scenes to make sure that they are not forgotten in the Congressional debate over health care reform, a process which could have major implications for the AIDS crisis in Puerto Rico.

Earlier this month, Representatives Pedro Pierluisi (D-Puerto Rico), Madeleine Bordallo (D-Guam), Donna Christensen (D-Virgin Islands), Eni F.H. Faleomavaega (D-American Samoa) and Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan (Northern Mariana Islands) sent a letter to Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) urging him to ensure that federal contributions to Medicaid for the territories achieve parity with contributions for U.S. states. The letter also urges Waxman to ensure that residents of the territories are fully eligible for federal credits that will help people get health insurance.

While an early “Discussion Draft” of the health reform bill extended health credits for the territories, the current draft does not.

The representatives also expressed their concerns in a face-to-face meeting with Waxman and New York Rep. Charlie Rangel a few days after sending the letter. “We got a commitment from both Representatives to make sure that our health needs are met,” said Arin Goodman, senior legislative aide to Sablan. “Rangel seemed especially outraged that, with the high levels of military enlistment from the territories, we were left out of the bill.”

Medicaid madness

Increasing Medicaid for Puerto Rico would be a major step forward in fighting the AIDS epidemic there. Insufficient Medicaid funds force many Puerto Ricans living with AIDS to rely on programs funded by the Ryan White Care Act. Ryan White has been notoriously mismanaged on the island, a situation that has resulted in a lack of access to AIDS medications through the Ryan White-funded AIDS Drugs Assistance Program (ADAP).

Despite the commitments from Waxman and Rangel, securing more health-care funding for the territories will not be easy. “Waxman expressed the concern that people always express about cost—nobody knows how much this will cost because there is so little data,” Goodman said. “Nonetheless, he is committed to working with us.”

The efforts of the representatives from the territories were sure to be echoed by a delegation of Puerto Ricans living with HIV, Puerto Rican AIDS activists and representatives of Housing Works, Amor Que Sana and CAIM, who, as of press time, were preparing to attend a series of meetings with U.S. Congressmen, the White House Office of National AIDS Policy and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Their agenda includes pushing for Medicaid parity, access to drug treatment—half of all HIV infections in Puerto Rico are spread through injection drug use—and access to housing.

The Update will have a full report on those meetings next week.

Tom’s Triumph: 30 Percent Rent Cap Passes Senate

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:32:00

Last Friday, in the wee hours of the morning, Sen. Tom Duane stunned his colleagues with a fuming, dramatic, impassioned speech in favor of legislation that would cap the rents of poor people living with HIV in subsidized housing at 30 percent.

Duane’s unforgettable 22-minute rallying cry (see video below) carried the day, with the Senate passing the bill 52 to 1. The only dissenter was Sen. Kemp Hannon, who claimed there were no studies to back up the value of supportive housing (here is where Hannon’s staff can find them).

Duane told the Update that the emotion behind the speech came in part out of his frustration with Republicans, who succeeded in killing two of Duane’s bills earlier in the very long legislative day. (One bill provided consumer rent-to-own protections, the other improved health care consumer choice). “Two of my bills were laid aside by Republicans 29 to 28. They were good bills and I knew they would come back, but I was unwilling to do that with the 30 percent rent cap,” Duane said. “Passing that bill is representative of the reason why I’m in the Senate.”

The speech, in which Duane repeatedly scoffed at his political foes, electrified AIDS advocates almost as much as the passage of the bill itself, which would provide a solution to a longstanding injustice: Poor people living with HIV in New York who receive housing assistance are being forced to put all but $330 of their monthly income toward rent. The lack of a rent cap leaves tenants $11 a day to live on. No other New Yorkers receiving rental assistance are forced to pay such an onerous share of their incomes.

In his speech, Duane reminded his colleagues of the deep sources of stigma around HIV in an effort to persuade them that people living with the disease desperately need the lifesaving support of a rent cap. He cited his own experiences of caring for friends who died early in the AIDS epidemic as well as a recent clash in Queens over a housing facility for people with HIV.

Duane repeatedly threw down the gauntlet to Senators looking to sink the legislation. “You think it’s funny? We’ll kill Duane’s bill! No you’re not killing my bill, you’re killing people!” he said, adding later, “I’m here to save my life and the lives of other people because they don’t have anyone sitting here.”

Game-changer

Veteran activist and POZ magazine founder Sean Strub sent out an email, calling Duane’s speech “one of the most powerful speeches ever given in a legislative chamber on behalf of people with HIV.” Duane’s colleagues were similarly moved. Led by Sens. Hiram Monserrate and Pedro Espada Jr., the bleary-eyed Dems in the Senate gave Duane a standing ovation.

“Senator Duane’s speech showed that the most eloquent defenders of people living with HIV are, in fact, the people themselves who are living with the disease,” said Housing Works President and CEO Charles King. “We must never stop speaking up about stigma or about our right to health care.”

Duane is the first openly gay and HIV-positive person elected to the State Senate.

Duane, whose speech also caught the attention of the media, told the Update that, had the Senate voted before he gave his speech, the rent cap bill would have gone down 29 to 28. He wasn’t dwelling on his victory. “I’m hoping [the Senate passage] helps the bill in the Assembly and that the Governor signs it,” he said.

Assembly Member Keith Wright has vigorously sponsored the bill in the Assembly, but Assembly Member Herman “Denny” Farrell blocked it from moving forward both this year and last.

The rent cap bill still must pass the Assembly and even if it does, Gov. Paterson has already stated his unwillingness to sign bills with new costs attached. The rent cap bill could save the State money: An analysis by Shubert Botein Policy Associates, estimated direct savings of over $19 million from prevented evictions would easily outweigh the projected costs of $16 million of the 30 percent rent cap.

Housing Works was part of a coalition including New York City AIDS Housing Network, Bailey House and others who sought out Duane, Assembly Member Deborah Glick and later Wright, to carry the legislation that would provide rent cap protection.

A long fight

The rent cap issue blew up in 2006 when the Pataki administration lifted the 30 percent rent cap for 2,200 HIV/AIDS Services Administration clients living in federal Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) and Section 8 housing.

The policy violated federal law capping rent for such individuals at 30 percent of their income. Housing Works and attorney Matthew Brinckerhoff filed for an injunction, which a federal court granted just two days before the new policy was to go into effect.

AIDS advocates thought the rent cap issue would be resolved back in 2007, when thanks to grassroots activist pressure, Eliot Spitzer’s new Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) commissioner David Hansell said he would reverse the policy. When settlement negotiations failed, the City and State moved to dismiss Rivers vs Doar, the Housing Works/Brinckerhoff case challenging the Pataki-era policy.

That case is still ongoing. Only two weeks ago, Housing Works attorneys were in court arguing that people receiving federal housing benefits have the right to sue New York City and State over the policy.

Syringe Exchange Ban On Way Out?

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:03:00

Last Friday, the day after activists got arrested in the Capitol, Rep. David Obey (D-WI) announced his decision to lift the ban on federal funding for syringe exchange. Today at 9 a.m., the House Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies will vote on the budget, which includes the ban language. Activists have been pushing hard to make sure the bill passes without any amendments that would weaken existing syringe exchange programs. 

“I want to call it a baby step, but it’s really a huge first step,” AIDS Action Political Director Bill McColl said in a conference call with advocates on Tuesday about today’s vote.   Although Obey was planning on lifting the ban before activists’ arrests, McColl credited the arrests for drawing necessary attention to the issue.  “Outside pressure reinforces Rep. Obey’s understanding of the situation,” McColl told the Update. “It’s important for them to know that a lot of people care about this issue. We definitely support the pressure to keep the pressure on.”   

Congress is receiving pressure not only in the HIV/AIDS and hepatitis community, but from public health advocates and law enforcement officials including the National Black Police Association, the American Public Health Association and the American Psychiatric Association. The media has also kept the heat on.

No amendments, please  

Advocates don’t know what amendments, if any, members (likely Republican) of the House committee will attempt to tack onto the bill today, or later, once it reaches the full House. But most concerning is a rider that was recently offered by Republican Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia and accepted by the Democrat-led Appropriations Committee. It would bar District of Columbia syringe exchange programs from distributing clean needles or syringes within 1,000 feet “of a public or private day care center, elementary school, vocational school, secondary school, college, junior college, or university, or any public swimming pool, park, playground, video arcade, or youth center, or an event sponsored by any such entity.” This rider would completely undermine D.C.‘s syringe exchange efforts, which were finally authorized by Congress in 2007.

“Assuming these limitations, the only place was near the Capitol and on the national Mall. Unfortunately it’s not going to meet the needs of the community,” said Jirair Ratevosian, an advocate working on this issue.   Another possible amendment would make syringe exchange programs pledge to oppose the legalization of drugs (a violation of the right to free speech).  

On the ground  

Since 1989, Congress has prevented the use of federal funds for syringe exchange programs, using the Labor, HHS Appropriations bill and other legal provisions to carry out the prohibition. Numerous studies have proven that syringe exchange program are cost-effective, save lives, do not promote drug use, and provide a conduit to primary health care for hard to reach populations. Annually, nearly 8,000 Americans contract HIV/AIDS and approximately 12,000 Americans contract the hepatitis C virus directly or indirectly from sharing contaminated syringes. Nationally there are more than 200 syringes exchanges are operating in 36 states, D.C. and Puerto Rico.  

Emily Metzner works as a community program assistant at CitiWide Harm Reduction in New York and was one of the 26 activists arrested in the Capitol last week. She said she sees every day how syringe exchange programs positively impact CitiWide’s clients. 

“The primary reason for syringe exchange programs is eliminating blood-borne illnesses, but it works on many, many levels,” Metzner said. “Syringe exchange programs serve to build community and connect people to care who otherwise would be on their own.”  

Crisis at NAPWA

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:37:00

Last spring’s Denver Principles Project was supposed to address the National Association of People with AIDS’ crisis of vision and finances. That membership drive was intended to give people with AIDS more ownership of an organization largely funded by pharma and government grants. Today, however, NAPWA is in even worse shape than before.

The organization’s lack of leadership and commitment to the people it is supposed to serve has prompted many former allies and partners to reluctantly leave the organization. Former board chair David Munar resigned last week, and a crucial partnership with POZ magazine is disintegrating. Veteran activist Sean Strub, who was contributing his star power and skills to the Denver Principles Project, has also parted ways with NAPWA.

Many people were unwilling or reluctant to comment on this recent series of catastrophes because they don’t want to undermine NAPWA, the only national organization meant to serve PWAs. But numerous people, both inside and outside the organization, have called on NAPWA to take a more public stance advocating for PWAs and to include more people unaffiliated with pharmaceutical companies and AIDS organizations on its board of directors.

Neither POZ nor NAPWA would comment on the crisis. But people familiar with the situation say POZ and NAPWA are both lawyered up and working toward terminating their relationship. NAPWA will no longer have its monthly feature in POZ and the last mention of NAPWA on POZ.com was a tough op-ed by Housing Works President and CEO Charles King entitled How to Renew PWA Ownership of NAPWA, which was also featured in the Update. POZ is still featured on NAPWA’s website, and some familiar with the situation say that NAPWA’s slow response to the situation with POZ puts its financial future in jeopardy.

Before the Denver Principles Project started, NAPWA had less than 100 paying members, although that has grow to at least 300 since the Project’s inception. Its ambitious goal is to have 100,000 new members.

A Chorus of Disappointment

Sean Strub, POZ‘s founder who largely conceived of the Denver Principles Project, wouldn’t comment on NAPWA and POZ’s relationship but said, on a personal level, “NAPWA doesn’t seem very interested in working with me.”

“I’m very disappointed,” Strub added. “I think NAPWA has abandoned its principles. I’m continuing to support the Denver Principles Project, and I hope it fosters support in the AIDS community. But NAPWA is failing to reform its principles and bring in unaffiliated PWAs.”

These sentiments were also conveyed by King.

“It’s now very clear that NAPWA is not prepared to live up to its promise to PWAs,” King said. “Without question this is the fault of the leadership of the organization, including the board and its executive. From the outside it seems apparent the board isn’t open to turning over substantive, democratic leadership by PWAs. It’s exercise with POZ was nothing more than a marketing gimmick looking to raise money.”

Munar wouldn’t comment on his resignation but released the following statement: “All I can say is that I remain fully committed to PLWHA advocacy and empowerment. NAPWA is a vitally important organization to give voice to those of us directly affected by HIV/AIDS.”

Sources said that Munar wanted NAPWA to make changes but faced resistance by Executive Director Frank Oldham and the board of directors.

Housing Works National Field Organizer and an HIV-positive member of NAPWA’s board of directors, Larry Bryant, said “to see David walk away is a significant blow to the organization and its purpose.”

He added, “NAPWA is the one group that’s made up of PWAs, but it doesn’t seem like its goal to [represent us] is being truly addressed. It’s one thing to address AIDS policies, but we jump right over people’s actual day-to-day concerns. As a Black man living with HIV, if I were involved with an issue of criminalization, who would I call?”

Michael Rajner served as a volunteer with NAPWA but resigned this week. He criticized the organization for failing to issue a statement commending the AIDS activists who were arrested in the Capitol rotunda. He was removed from the Federal AIDS Policy Partnership listserv after a representative from NAPWA contacted the listserv’s moderators to inform them that Rajner was no longer affiliated with NAPWA.

“My time is too valuable to be struggling with an organization I want to support but can’t be a vehicle for our community’s voice,” Rajner said. “I don’t see it as the AIDS community’s voice. I see it as the voice of some special interests. There’s some good people involved, but it’s time that this organization really take a look at itself.”

HOPWA recipients’ day in court

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 16:23:00

Last Thursday, Housing Works lawyers and co-counsel Matthew Brinckerhoff argued in federal court that approximately 2,200 poor New Yorkers living with AIDS who reside in federally subsidized housing have the right to sue New York State and City over the amount of their income they have to pay toward rent.

The case in question, Rivers v. Doar, was filed as a result of a directive by the Pataki administration in October 2006 that the State would no longer cap rent at 30 percent of income for the 2,200 HIV/AIDS Services Administration clients living in federal Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) and Section 8 housing.

The new policy violated federal law capping rent for such individuals at 30 percent of their income. Housing Works and Brinckerhoff filed for an injunction, which federal court Justice Frederic Block granted just two days before the new policy was to go into effect.

AIDS advocates thought the rent cap issue would be resolved back in 2007, when, thanks to grassroots activist pressure, Eliot Spitzer’s new Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) commissioner David Hansell said he would reverse the Pataki-era policy. When settlement negotiations failed, the City and State moved to dismiss the case on various grounds.

Who can sue?

A key issue in the Rivers case, upon which Justice Block focused at oral argument, was the question as to whether HOPWA recipients have standing to bring such a case (or, in legal terms, a “private right of action”). Block suggested that HOPWA recipients do not have that right because the HOPWA statute doesn’t directly state that individuals have a right to a 30 percent rent cap.

Housing Works attorneys pointed out that a 1987 Supreme Court case found that individuals have the right to sue under the 30 percent cap contained in Section 8 law, and that Congress enacted HOPWA after this decision, mandating that HOPWA copy the Section 8 law, which contains the 30 percent rent cap.

Block was unimpressed by this argument.

“I can rule on this, but you’re not going to like my decision,” Block told the plaintiffs. He gave the plaintiffs’ attorneys a week to submit a brief explaining why HOPWA clients have a right to sue under the act. Housing Works and co-counsel submitted that brief on Wednesday.

”There was some understandable confusion regarding the precise language of the HOPWA statute,” Housing Works’ Senior Staff Attorney Armen H. Merjian explained, “and Justice Block wondered whether the language mandating that HOPWA follow the Section 8 law had been amended. Thankfully, the controlling law–which has not been amended–states that rental assistance under HOPWA should be patterned after Section 8 law, which includes the 30 percent cap that the Supreme Court has ruled does indeed give rise to a private right of action.”

Not a moot point

Another issue addressed last week was whether the Rivers case is moot because the rent cap is not currently being enforced. City and State officials have stated that they will not violate the 30 percent rent cap, albeit after the injunction was entered prohibiting them from doing so. However, this is a gentleman’s agreement that even the attorney for the State admitted might be altered.

“We don’t plan to, but as a matter of law we could change the policy,” the assistant attorney general said in response to Judge Block’s question.

Block appeared skeptical, noting that the policy could be quickly discarded in tough budgetary times.

Block is expected to reach a ruling within the next few months.

photo credit:http://www.flickr.com/photos/joegratz/117048243/

Court rules in favor of transgender woman, against Transit Authority

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 13:57:00

In a major win for transgender New Yorkers, an appeals court ruled unanimously that New York City Transit Authority employees are not exempt from the New York City Human Rights Law, and thus can be held liable for discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression.

The Appellate Division, Second Department (“Appellate Division”) upheld the lower court’s ruling in Bumpus v. New York City Transit Authority, refusing to dismiss the case against a Transit worker who, Plaintiff Tracy Bumpus avers, launched a sustained and vicious transphobic assault on her at a Brooklyn subway station. In that February 2008 ruling, Justice Robert J. Miller explained, “The Human Rights Law affords protection to transgender people in New York City. By riding the subway, a transgender person doesn’t become less of a person and lose the protection of the Human Rights Law.”

This is the latest in a series of notable victories for Bumpus in the burgeoning field of transgender rights law, and the last option for the Transit Authority, which has spent two years appealing the case. Last year, the Appellate Division refused to overturn another lower-court decision affirming Bumpus’ right to sue Transit for negligence in the matter. And in May, Justice Miller ruled that Bumpus’s partner cannot be asked “plainly improper” questions about his sexual orientation simply because gender discrimination is at stake.

“The filing of a civil lawsuit is not a passport which allows exploration or invasion of the most intimate beliefs a person may have based on half baked psychology or timeless stereotypes,” Miller explained.

Statewide, there is no law preventing discrimination against people on the basis of gender identity and expression. In March, the Gender Expression Nondiscrimination Act passed through the Assembly, but because of the Albany fiasco, it has not passed through the State Senate.

“The Transit Authority has over 40,000 employees,” Housing Works’ Senior Staff Attorney Armen H. Merjian observed. “We are gratified that the Appellate Division has affirmed that these employees are not exempt from the New York City Human Rights Law, the only law in New York that protects transgender citizens from discrimination. And we are saddened that the Transit Authority sought to establish otherwise.”

Entrepreneur Thinks Outside the Storage Box

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 12:48:01

“Two years ago, the basement storage space of Scott Sinclair’s Upper West Side townhouse flooded. . .”

Paper Magazine Takes Over Housing Works!

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:27:00

Paper Magazine has taken over! Housing Works and Paper and Papermag.com have teamed up to launch the summer edition of our “Editors’ Picks” shopping event series—the fashion-savyy editors at Paper have hand-picked Housing Works fashions for you, plus they’re styling the windows and throwing a cocktail party as only they can. Setting the shopping mood will be DJs Andrew Andrew.

Shoppers can expect bold, colorful, cutting-edge items and lots and lots of labels like (pictured left, from top): Alexander McQueen for Target grey stretch denim jacket ($20) and print leggings ($10); Emanuel Ungaro floral print dress ($100); Casadei silver mesh sling backs ($90); and Marc Jacobs silk organza yellow shell ($40).

Paper Editorial Director Mickey Boardman says, “We love Housing Works because they turn shopping into doing a good deed!”

Can’t make it to the party? You can still shop some of Paper’s picks online at www.shophousingworks.com/editorspicks!

Where: Housing Works Gramercy Thrift Shop, 157 E. 23rd St. between Lexington and Third Avenues (subway: 6 to 23rd St.)
When: Thursday, July 23 from 6 to 9pm
RSVP: www.papermag.com/editorspicks
Cost: FREE
Benefits: Housing Works, the largest community-based AIDS service organization in the United States. Since 1990, we have provided lifesaving services to more than 20,000 homeless and low-income New Yorkers living with HIV and AIDS.

End the ban of federal syringe exchange funding today

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 18:05:00

Last week, AIDS activists staged a civil disobedience protest in the U.S. Capitol rotunda, demanding Congress lift a senseless federal ban on syringe exchange funding. Twenty-six people were arrested. Worldwide media attention played a role with pressuring Congress to take a big step toward lifting the ban the very next day

Annually, nearly 8,000 Americans contract HIV/AIDS and approximately 12,000 Americans contract the hepatitis C virus directly or indirectly from sharing contaminated syringes. Syringe exchange programs are proven to be cost-effective and lifesaving, do not promote drug use, and provide a conduit to primary health care for hard to reach populations. Since 1989, Congress has banned the use of federal funds for syringe exchange programs, by attaching a rider to the Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations bill.

In a historic move on Friday July 10th, Chairman David R. Obey (D-WI) and the Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee removed the ban from the FY 2010 appropriations bill. In a statement issued Friday, Obey championed the authority of local communities in deciding this issue, stating, “The judgment we make in this bill is that it is time to lift this ban and let State and local jurisdictions determine if they want to pursue this approach.”

But the fight is far from over. We need your help to ensure that the ban is not reinserted or to prevent new restrictions on syringe exchange from being added during the Appropriations process. The time is now. The full Appropriations Committee will vote on the bill on Friday and it will quickly go to the House floor.

This is our opportunity to end the ban and restore science and justice to national HIV prevention efforts. Help us prevent an amendment to reinstate the ban from passing. Contact key representatives on the Appropriations Committee immediately to urge him or her to block such an amendment and support syringe exchange programs. To use AIDS Action’s quicksend form, please enter your zip code.

This bill is targeted directly to members of the full Appropriations Committee. If your representative is not a member of the Appropriations Committee, you will not need to send this alert. However, please be prepared to send an alert when the bill comes before the full House as early as next week.

Housing Works scores major victory!

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:57:01

Last week, Housing Works and other activists staged a civil disobedience protest in the U.S. Capitol rotunda, demanding Congress lift a senseless federal ban on syringe exchange funding. Syringe exchange programs have been shown to dramatically reduce HIV infections.

Twenty-six people, including Housing Works President and CEO Charles King and other staffers, were arrested. Worldwide media attention forced Congress to take a big step toward lifting the ban the very next day !

Read more about the civil disobedience in the Capitol and Housing Works’ HIV prevention services such as syringe exchange.

Police arrest 26 AIDS activists at Capitol protest

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 16:08:00

“A group of AIDS activists was arrested Thursday for unlawfully demonstrating in the Capitol rotunda, a Capitol Police spokeswoman said. . .”

26 AIDS activists shut down U.S. Capitol

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 15:44:00

Twenty six AIDS activists from across the Northeast U.S. were arrested Thursday after staging a raucous demonstration inside the Capitol Rotunda on the eve of key Congressional votes on appropriations for life-saving AIDS programs and one day before President Obama’s first trip to Africa since his election.

The activists decried the Obama administration’s failure to make good on a range of AIDS campaign promises including his pledge to lift the federal ban on funding syringe exchange, to fully fund lifesaving global AIDS programs, and to fully fund AIDS housing programs in this year’s budget. The activists demanded Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and other Congressional leadership fix President Obama’s flawed budget proposal.

“HIV is not in recession, so why are we bailing out the bankers but breaking promises to fund life-saving programs here in the U.S. and around the world?” asked Omolola Adele-Oso of DC Fights Back. Informally titled Sound the Alarm, the protest underlined the fact that every nine and half minutes someone in the U.S. is infected with HIV, yet Obama refuses to respond to this urgency.

Housing Works President and CEO Charles King, who is living with HIV, was among the activists who were arrested. “Obama can no longer the ignore the promises that he made in order to win the support of Americans who care about ending the AIDS epidemic. So far, he has let us down on all fronts,” he said.

The activists demands will surely reach the White House. Thanks to media outlets including Politico.com and the Associated Press (as well as tweeters) news of the protest instantly spread across the country. See photos of the demo and video (below).

How the demo went down

Around 50 activists, who had obtained tickets for tours of the Capitol, gravitated to the majestic, tourist-filled rotunda at 10am. A designated activist revealed a T-shirt saying “Congress: Clean needles now! HIV housing saves lives! Fight global AIDS!” and began chanting “AIDS funding now!” and “Needle exchange now!”

The 26 people who planned to participate in the civil disobedience action then revealed their protest tees, gathered together, and used zip ties to link themselves with white plastic chains (befuddling police who later had to scramble for bolt cutters to break the chains).

Several activists then unfurled an enormous banner bearing the same message as the T-shirt, parading it around the Rotunda.

Capitol Police instantly began clearing the Rotunda of curious tourists, media (who were tipped off before hand) and the activists who had hoped to provide legal (and moral) support. The demonstrators managed to chant their message for 45 minutes before being hauled away by police. They were charged with disorderly conduct, unlawful gathering and loud and boisterous behavior.

All of the activists were released in the afternoon.

The protest, which included representatives of Housing Works, CitiWide Harm Reduction, D.C. Fights Back, Harlem United, New York AIDS Housing Network, Health GAP, ACT UP Philadelphia and other groups, was intended to bring attention to three issues where the administration has failed to live up to its promises:

AIDS housing funding

Obama’s budget flatfunds the Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS Act (HOPWA), the only federal program that funds housing for people living with AIDS—even as the number of people with HIV in the U.S. is rising. Housing is proven to reduce the spread of the disease and save money on shelter and emergency room costs. Activists want to see HOPWA funding increased from $310 million to $360 million.

“We are here because we know that our friends, families, and communities are still dying,” said Larry Bryant of Housing Works, who was arrested. “From D.C. to California to Zambia people living with AIDS need Congress to act this week and need the administration to make good on its promises.”

Gustavo Pedroza, of the New York City AIDS Housing Network commented, “Housing is one of our most basic needs and a critical part of HIV treatment, care and prevention. Without it, other strategies to fight HIV simply don’t work. Given the rising cost of housing, President Obama’s proposal to flat-fund federal AIDS housing programs will mean low-income people with HIV will lose their housing, not to mention longer waiting lists for a life-saving home.”

Needle-exchange funding

The activists also denounced the administration’s failure to lift the ban on syringe exchange funding. “Thousands of people have died in the past decade because clean syringes aren’t available,” said Jose De Marco, an HIV-positive member of ACT UP Philadelphia and Proyecto Sol Filadelfia. “President Obama, who many of us worked to elect, promised to follow the science and lift the federal funding ban on needle exchange, but his budget explicitly included the ban. Now it’s up to Congress to show real courage where the President has not.”

And some members of Congress have gotten the message.

“I don’t know if that’s the most effective way to do it, but it does draw public attention to the issue,” Rep. Jim McDermott (D-WA) said in an interview with The Hill. “I think with the cost involved with someone getting AIDS, needle-exchange programs are actually cost-effective. “So conservatives ought to be for it. What they’re really saying is that we want them to die. And we want them to spend a lot of money while they’re dying.”

Global AIDS funding

Activists noted that despite campaign pledges to increase bilateral global AIDS (PEPFAR) funding by $1 billion a year and fully fund the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria, the Administration’s budget proposal essentially flat-lines global AIDS funding. Unless President Obama and Congress keep their promise to fund the U.S.‘s fair one-third share of the Global Fund’s needed $6 to 8 billion, the Global Fund will have to cut billions of dollars worth of life-saving grants.

Crowley Says

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:38:01

In conference calls with AIDS advocates during the last two weeks, White House Domestic AIDS Czar Jeffrey Crowley continued to defend the Obama administration’s progress on HIV/AIDS policy and said that a basic structure for a National AIDS Strategy should be in place by early 2010. Many advocates were skeptical as to both the timeline and how much community input will be a part of the process.

“I feel like I’m balancing competing pressures,” Crowley said in a call with more than 200 members of the Federal AIDS Policy Partnership (FAPP) on Monday, noting that he needed to gather input from different sectors of society but also faces pressure to get things done quickly. He also spoke with more than 50 members of the Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA) last Thursday.

Crowley revealed some new information in the calls: Government agencies will ultimately advise and create the National AIDS Strategy, though his office will organize at least 10 formal town hall meetings throughout the fall throughout the country to gather community input. The first meeting will be on August 25 at the National HIV Prevention Conference in Atlanta.

Crowley said he doesn’t yet know if people not attending the conference will be allowed to participate in the town hall. He also doesn’t know where the rest of the town halls will be but said at least one will be geared towards Native Americans. Others will take place in areas hard hit by the epidemic and where the epidemic is growing. Crowley plans to reach out to people who are HIV-positive, as well as people who are not directly involved with fighting AIDS. The White House will also create an online forum for gathering comments.

Once the town halls are complete in the fall, government agencies will get to work drafting the strategy. This timeline suggests that a National AIDS Strategy wouldn’t go into effect until early 2010, at the very earliest.

Slightly skeptical

Participants in both calls were lukewarm about Crowley’s message. While praising his openness, some were concerned with his extended timeline and lack of progress.

“I’m not 100 percent satisfied with the strategy being put out next year. I want to see a strategy put in place before next year so it can be implemented,” said Marsha Jones, secretary of C2EA.

FAPP Co-Chair Will Smith said he was worried that community input might not be adequate.

“The process may not sufficiently bring the HIV community in,” Smith said. “We don’t know if these ten townhall style meetings will provide input into what a National AIDS Strategy looks like.”

Crowley said that federal law prohibits him from convening advisory panels, which is why he can’t have formal community input, as he would like. And although he was “reluctant” to talk about it, he said that the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) will be reevaluated when the charter expires next month.

“It’s an opportunity to take a fresh step forward,” Crowley said.

Advocates have been calling for a National AIDS Strategy for years and momentum reached a peak in the months leading up to the election in November. Obama recently said he supports a National AIDS Strategy in a radio interview with Bev Smith on National HIV Testing Day last month.

‘Same old story

Crowley is also “far along in the process” of hiring five staffers and said that members of the staff will be HIV-positive.

“I’ve made a commitment for people with HIV on my staff and to have racial and gender diversity,” Crowley said in the call with C2EA. But he noted it would be “discriminatory on many levels” to designate a position just for a person of a specific race, gender or HIV-status. “But we can’t just rely on staff members. That’s why I’m committed to getting a process in place where we can get as much input as possible.”

Crowley has made a point of being accessible, even giving out his e-mail address to participants. Many advocates on the call had spoken to him before and already heard much of what he had to say.

“That’s the job of government, to repeat your message over and over until people hear it. I’m just looking forward to when that message is updated,” said SisterLove executive director Dazon Dixon Diallo.

One message that has yet to be updated is lifting the ban on syringe exchange funding. While Obama has stated his support for lifting the ban, he has yet to exert any public pressure on Congress to do so. Crowley suggested that advocates need to up their lobbying, enlisting the faith and law enforcement communities in their efforts.

“Jeff ignores the fact that the White House has lobbied Congress on countless issues,” said Housing Works President and CEO Charles King, whose recent speech criticized the Obama administration. “Obama needs to take a public stand to show he is committed to lifting the ban on syringe exchange.”

More money, still more problems

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 17:33:00

Before the State Senate madness, Governor Paterson ushered in the first increase in public assistance in 19 years. The change, which took effect July 1, will increase the basic public assistance grant by 10 percent for the next three years. While every dollar makes a difference, for 11,000 poor people living with AIDS, true relief won’t come until the state eliminates the unfair rent burden that they have to pay.

“I’m holding on by my fingernails,” said James Lister, a New York City AIDS Housing Network member and one of those 11,000 New Yorkers. Lister was diagnosed with HIV in 1989 and went on disability “kicking and screaming” in 2003. He now pays 74 percent of his social security income to live in the rent-stabilized apartment that he’s lived in for 30 years.

“I wear dead people’s clothing and collect bottles and cans to have money to buy indispensable necessities that I can no longer afford on $11 a day, saving up for what is absolutely necessary, like foul-weather shoes and new jeans for the winter weather months, or a light bulb or bath soap,” Lister said. “If I only had to pay 30 percent of my income towards rent it would be a life change.”

New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS are the only poor people in the state whose rental assistance is not capped at 30 percent of their incomes because their benefits come from the New York City and State (all federal benefits are capped at the thirty percent rate. People who receive Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) and Section 8 housing are required by federal law to have a 30 percent rent cap.

So, thanks to the public assistance increase, HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) clients in independent living will now be able to keep $344 per month of their monthly government benefits—instead of $330 per month. An increase for sure, but not nearly enough for someone like Lister.

11,000 poor HIV-positive tenants housed through HASA pay an average of 50 to 60 percent of their public assistance benefits towards rent.

Why has 30 percent rent cap legislation stalled?

Legislation that would implement a 30 percent rent cap for HASA clients was introduced into the state Senate and Assembly four years ago . The legislation (S02664 and A02565) passed three years in a row through the Assembly Social Services committee and through the Senate social services committee for the first time this year.

Before the Senate quagmire opened up, the city’s Human Resources Administration and the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance created an analysis claiming that only 72 HASA clients are evicted per year and that the 30 percent rent cap bill would cost the City and State $28 million.

This analysis sharply contradicts an in-depth analysis by Ginny Shubert at Shubert Botein Associates, which shows a cost savings of $19 million. Shubert Botein Associates, as well as Sen. Tom Duane, has questioned the state’s analysis.

Shubert Botein’s questioning of the analysis reads, “Perhaps the most cynical error in the OMB cost analysis is the report of only 72 ‘HASA client evictions’ annually. As HASA representatives explained in a recent NYS Senate Social Services Committee meeting, this figure includes only those evictions that go all the way through the process and involve the sheriff physically removing a resident. HASA has acknowledged that this count includes only a very small fraction of actual evictions of HASA clients. The number of such ‘literal’ evictions is meaningless as a measure of the housing crises experienced by HASA clients.”

Once the Senate is back in session, advocates will be forcefully pushing for this legislation. For Lister, that won’t come soon enough.

“If these bills were to pass, it would mean I could stop wearing dead-people’s clothes, stop collecting bottles and cans, and I could restore my dignity,” he said.

Sound the Alarm: HIV Is Not In Recession

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 07:25:01

Last month, President Obama presented his budget to Congress. While there were many areas that showed a real, positive change from the previous administration, there are a handful of areas where the budget did not go far enough. We need to tell Congress to fix it. The U.S. economy may be in recession, but HIV is not. Every 9 1/2 minutes, someone in the US is infected with HIV. Forty-five more are infected around the world. This is unacceptable, and we can prevent it.

Housing Works and our allies are working to improve the federal budget on three levels:

We want an end to the ban on syringe exchange funding (the ban is in the budget!)
We want full funding for AIDS housing programs
We want the US to pay its fair share to fight global AIDS

These decisions are being made now, so we have decided to have a call-in day to Congress to voice our demands. If we all call, then we will join hundreds of others making the call and it will have a clear impact.

Call the leaders of the House and Senate today and tell them HIV is not in recession!

Do you live in California, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, or Wisconsin?

If so, you have a special call to make — your Senator sits on an especially important Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, which decides funding for all programs in the U.S. See how to contact them!

For everyone else, please call Senate Majority Leader Reid and Speaker Pelosi. As the leaders of both chambers of Congress, they can have a significant impact on the outcome of the budget, and are accountable to the entire nation.

Speaker Pelosi: 202-225-0100

Majority Leader Reid: 202-224-3542

When you call, say:

“My name is _____________ and I’m calling to request that Speaker Pelosi [Majority Leader Reid] work with the Appropriations Committee to improve President Obama’s budget and secure sufficient funding for AIDS programs in the US and around the world. One person is infected with HIV every 9 and a half minutes in the US, and 45 more are infected around the world. It’s time to act, and we need Speaker Pelosi’s [Majority Leader Reid’s] support for an end to the federal ban on funding syringe exchange, $2.7 billion for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, at least a $1 billion increase in funding for PEPFAR, and $360 million for AIDS housing programs. HIV is not in recession, and these programs need Speaker Pelosi’s [Majority Leader Reid’s] support.”

President Obama committed to fully funding evidence-based interventions, like AIDS housing and needle exchange. And he committed to increasing funding for the US Global AIDS Plan, known as PEPFAR, by at least $1 billion per year, plus support for multilateral programs like the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria. For more information on each of the issues, go to sound-the-alarm.org.

Call today! Then forward this email to your friends and ask them to call. Today is the day we need everyone to take action.

*Read this far? Why haven’t you called? Call now! You can find out how here.*

Once you’ve called, send an email to soundthealarm.july7@gmail.com and let us know how it went.

P.S.- While we are focused on the 2010 budget, another important battle is happening in Washington around health care reform. Advocates are working hard to make sure that any final reform bill expands health care for low-income people with HIV/AIDS. Go to www.taepusa.org for more information and action alerts.

A Milestone On The HIV Ban

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:21:00

“Today, the regulatory process of repealing the ban inches forward. . .”

We Are the Ones We’ve Been Waiting For: AIDS Advocacy In the Obama Era

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 17:25:00

I know that I was asked to speak on homelessness as prevention, and I will certainly get to it in my remarks. But, to be honest, that isn’t what is really on my heart this morning, desperately important as it is. Instead, have titled this morning’s speech, “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for: AIDS advocacy in the Obama era.” I have also taken the trouble to write this speech out so that I can clearly articulate my thoughts and not be misunderstood.

The election of Barack Obama as the 45th President of the United States clearly marks an important moment in the history of this country. In a nation born with the original sin of slavery and racism written into its very constitution, a nation that took some hundred years to find its way to emancipation and another hundred years after that to repudiate segregation, a nation in which a Black man is still 20 times more likely to go to jail than a white man and 10 times less likely, if he hasn’t gone to jail, than a white man who is a convict, to be hired for a job, the election of an African American as president is certainly a remarkable moment in history.

Moreover, this election was no mere signifier to be noted in the history books. First, it was without question a repudiation of the eight prior years of unilateral and foolhardy militarism, unbridled cronyism, Laissez-faire capitalism, no-nothing nativism and a deliberately divisive use of rightist religious and cultural ideology manifest by the administration of Bush Junior. And, without question, it spoke to the desire of most White Americans to move beyond the stain of racism that continues to taint so many of our day to day interactions with suspicion at the very least. In fact, the historicity of this moment can be seen in the rising extreme rhetoric and rising individually-enacted but nonetheless consequential violence of the religious and political right. There is a real sense of profound diminishment and even grief among these segments of society who know that they have indeed lost something even if it is too intangible for them to articulate.

But, having said that, I also strongly believe that the significance of the election of Barack Obama can certainly be overstated, and it has been overstated by way too many people who yearn for progressive social change. Yes, it is true that Obama ran in the Democratic primaries as an anti-war, affirmative social change progressive. You could go on his campaign web site and chalk up the issues, whether the war in Iraq, women’s rights, civil rights, labor, immigration, health care, urban affairs, LGBT concerns, you name it, he had staked out a progressive posture, generally not too, too radical, but almost always just a hair to the left of Hillary Clinton, if way to the right of Ohio’s Dennis Kucinich. On AIDS, he called for a national strategy, committed to an increased global fight, and offered a platform that we could have written for him…in fact, if you look at the platform articulated by the Campaign to End AIDS and its AIDSVote partners, we probably did, and we were thrilled when his campaign plagiarized from us.

And then there was his consistently eloquent talk of change we could believe in…coupled with soaring rhetoric that made the heart sing and yearn to believe….He could have been a good old Baptist preacher, for God’s sake…only much cooler, much more articulate. But to tell the truth, 150 days into this administration, it is amply clear that Obama is in fact governing as a moderately conservative Democrat, much in the strain of his predecessor, Bill Clinton.

On war, notwithstanding the hay he made in his campaign for having opposed the invasion of Iraq, he has basically maintained the Bush trajectory on withdrawal from Iraq and significantly increased our nation’s investment in war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. On the campaign trail, he repeatedly spoke to his commitment to women’s right to choose their own destiny, over and over pledging to pass the Freedom of Choice Act. Yet, when questioned about it in his nationally televised 100 day press conference, he made a point to say that this legislation was not high on his priority list, no doubt sending the leadership of both NOW and NARAL into apoplexy.

Notwithstanding his claims to stand on the shoulders of the great civil rights activists of yesteryear, in almost every case that has come up in federal court since his inauguration, whether the right to sue for being tortured, the right to view photographs of U.S. involvement in torture, limits on warrantless surveillance or even the most recent case on the right to post-conviction DNA testing, Obama’s Justice Department has taken the stand most antithetical to true civil libertarians. As to his debt to organized labor, let’s just say he was against free trade agreements before he was for them, and if you count priorities by the billions of tax dollars committed, he definitely favors saving the banks on Wall Street over the jobs on Main Street…and no economist today is comparing his bank reforms to Roosevelt’s unless it is to say that there really isn’t a comparison.

As to LGBT issues, don’t look for an end to “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” any time soon. As General Gates made clear, we’ve got a war to fight, so we’re not going to rock the boat now. Repeal of “The Defense of Marriage Act” is somewhere below the Freedom of Choice Act on the priority list. To be sure, this week the President signed an executive order giving partners of gay and lesbian federal employees a handful of rights, but no right to health care or survivors’ pensions, the most important ones. In fact, the President was forced to issue the order when the Administration provoked loud outrage and the threat of a boycott by major gay funders of the Democratic Party by arguing in court against decisions by two federal judges granting married gay spouses spousal health insurance. Not only did the Justice Department make the argument that the Defense of Marriage Act, which denies federal recognition of state laws granting gay marriage, is constitutional, it did so by comparing gay marriage to incest.

The only reasonably progressive commitment President Obama has held to is health care reform, and even there, he has hardly staked out a radical position. He wouldn’t even touch the truly progressive single payer proposal, and now is signaling his willingness to compromise on even a federal health insurance option for anyone who is not impoverished or disabled. Specifically, he welcomed as a potential compromise a proposal by Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota to substitute regional or state-run health care cooperatives as a possible alternative.

When it comes to AIDS, well, he didn’t say so out loud, but clearly AIDS isn’t on the top of Obama’s priority list either. Yesterday, as I am sure you saw on television or read in the newspaper, there was a horrible train wreck in the District of Columbia. At least six people were killed and dozens injured. The President immediately issued a statement expressing his and Michelle’s condolences to injured and the families of the deceased and his thanks to the “brave first responders.” On March 16, the Washington, the D.C. Department of Health issued a report reflecting the following: D.C. has an HIV infection rate of 3 percent, by far the highest HIV infection rate in the nation, and among the worst HIV infection rates in the world. Seven percent of Black men in the district are infected (as are some 50 percent of Black men in D.C. who have sex with men), and that the HIV infection rate has increased 22 percent in just two years. Notwithstanding the particular role the federal government plays in D.C. affairs, or the acclaim the Obamas have gotten for their interest in local Washington matters ranging from soup kitchens and homeless shelters to schools and churches, and even to hamburger joints, to this day, the President’s press office has not said a word about the local AIDS epidemic raging in the shadow of the White House…and no shout out to the “brave first responders” either.

Remember, Obama promised to develop and implement a national strategy to address the epidemic within his first year of office. So now five months have passed, and we don’t even have a plan to develop a plan. Call up Jeff Crowley, the Director of the White House Office of AIDS Policy, and ask him about it. What he will tell you is, “I hope to be able to announce a plan to develop the plan very soon.” Asked why it wasn’t important to have the process announced by 100 days, the deadline activists had demanded, he was quoted as saying, “I don’t believe in artificial deadlines.” Of course, that’s why the President held a nationally televised press conference on his 100th day to catalogue all of the really important things he had already accomplished.

Not only is Obama not proving progressive on AIDS, but in some regards we are moving backwards in this Administration. Last year, President Bush pledged $50 billion to the fight against global AIDS over the next five years. Candidate Obama took the same stand, but President Obama put forward a budget that would spread that same $50 billion over six years. In other words, a cut over what Bush had proposed. Yes, President Obama has actually proposed cutting funding for global AIDS.

The one progressive thing Obama did on AIDS in the budget was to indicate that prevention dollars would follow science. But our friends at SIECUS will tell you that the loopholes in the language leave plenty of room for the federal government to continue to waste millions of dollars on abstinence-only funding. And the Administration has flat out refused to do anything to tamper with rules that allow AIDS prevention and services dollars, both international and domestic, to flow to faith based organizations that used the funds to proselytize and promote homophobia, and that discriminate in hiring and services based on religious affiliation, sexual orientation, and moral judgments about the applicant. (Let me be clear, I don’t opposed faith-based funding. I am a minister called by God to carry out the work that I do, and I think more ministers should do the same. But it is both morally wrong and unconstitutional to use the funds as some of these groups do.)

But you wouldn’t know any of this if you looked at the press releases put out by most of the leading AIDS organizations in response to the President’s budget proposal. Most of them celebrated incremental increases to various to of the Ryan White Titles, AIDS Incorporated’s bread and butter, and a mere $10 million increase in spending for housing for people living with AIDS and HIV.

What I appreciate most are the arguments used by this Administration for its inaction. As you all will recall, last July, Congress finally lifted its statutory ban on HIV-positive persons entering this country. However, the CDC has to promulgate new regulations that would lift the regulatory classification of HIV that perpetuates the ban. It took the Obama Administration until mid-April to submit to the Office of Management and Budget the proposed regulatory change that the Bush Administration had been working on. In meetings with the White House, it was explained that the review process that would result in promulgation of new regulations would take on the order of nine months, even at its most expedited. The advocates suggested that in the interim, if this really was of the highest priority for the President, he could issue an Executive Order granting a temporary blanket waiver.

This suggestion was met with outright indignation. “This Administration stands for two things,” the White House official explained. “Change, of course, and the rule of law. We don’t circumvent regulations when we don’t like them. We follow the proper procedures to change them.” Of course, if they don’t like the CEO of General Motors, they don’t need any regulatory authority to fire him. They just shove him out the door as a condition for the bailout. Meanwhile, real people are suffering because of a rule that everyone now agrees is stigmatizing and counter to good public health policy. (The International AIDS Society has even been considering bring its 2012 AIDS Conference to the Capital if we would only lift the ban…of course, given the President’s lack of response to the report on the DC epidemic, perhaps he really doesn’t want the attention the conference would bring.)

Another telling piece of evidence on the Obama Administration’s commitment to AIDS was the decision to leave the ban on federal funding for needle exchange in the President’s proposed budget. The President’s staffers insist that the President still supports lifting the ban, but Crowley, speaking to this issue at AIDSWatch, counseled patience on our part, given the likelihood that lifting the ban would spark a battle in the cultural wars. The official, official line was a bit different. “We have not removed the ban in our budget proposal because we want to work with Congress and the American public to build support for this change,” a White House official said. “We are committed to doing this as part of a National HIV/AIDS strategy and are confident that we can build support for these scientifically-based programs.”

He added, “In recent years, Washington has used the budget process to litigate divisive issues and score political points. This practice, which both sides have engaged in, has limited our ability to tackle our major economic challenges. President Obama decided not to play politics as usual with this budget and while he remains committed to supporting the program he wants to address that through the normal legislative process.” Oops, once again we pesky AIDS activists were suggesting an illegitimate short cut that this Change President couldn’t countenance.

Of course, when the Senate was voting on its budget plan, Administration figures strong-armed the leadership into including an option of using a budget devise to avoid normal Senate rules that would allow Democrats to force the health care plan through Congress without the threat of a Republican filibuster, or delaying debate. It seems it’s just fine to play politics with the budget when it is something really super duper important, but it wouldn’t be right to do that with something to end the AIDS pandemic.

Now, I don’t want anybody walking out of here saying, “Charles King from Housing Works just gave a speech against President Obama.” I like Obama. I really do. I voted for him in the Democratic primaries, and I’m from New York….and I took the train down to DC on a cold day in January so I could stand in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln while he was being sworn in. I’m just here to tell you when it comes to AIDS or any other progressive cause you might care about, Barack Obama is not the change you all have been looking for.

I’m sorry if I have knocked the wind out of your sails. But unfortunately, too many people have their hopes way too high and are putting their trust in all the wrong places. In fact, it is even worse than that. So many of us were shut out by the last administration…not matter how hard some of us tried to suck up…that we are happy just to have someone in the White House who will take our calls and invite us in for a meeting, no matter how superficial. Some of us genuinely hope he’ll come through for us in the end, and others still aspire for a fancy job with a nice government title and the great health insurance plan that comes with it (unless, of course, you are a same-sex spouse). In either case, we hold our tongue and counsel others to do the same, because “we need to give him a chance.”

So when the Campaign to End AIDS called for accountability demonstrations in March to mark 50 days in office, folk thought it was premature. At AIDSWatch, just 48 hours shy of 100 days, instead of marching on the White House, we sat a few blocks away and politely listened as Jeff Crowley counseled us to be patient. And today we sit here in Philadelphia at another annual AIDS conference, talking about important stuff to be sure, but still not collectively demanding the structural and systemic changes that would really bring AIDS to an end.

So let’s take a look at some of the things we really ought to be doing if we really want to end the AIDS epidemic. Five years ago, the Campaign to End AIDS distilled it down to four simple things:

Provide treatment, services and care, including housing, to every single HIV-positive person who needs it;

Implement prevention strategies that follow science and not ideology;

Ramp up research, not just for a cure or vaccine, but also for innovative prevention strategies such as vaginal and anal microbicides; and

End stigma against people living with AIDS and HIV.

Since C2EA developed this four-point platform, the research has advanced on several fronts. First, there have been a number of important studies released on the impact of early treatment. Two studies, released in the last 60 days, indicate that initiation of ARVs among people infected with HIV before the t-cells decline below 500 copies reduces mortality by more than 90 percent. This begs for a new standard of care that would require providers to offer HIV medications as soon as one is diagnosed. Yet that is not the standard anywhere in the United States or anywhere else in the world, notwithstanding a recommendation to that effect last summer by the US Section of the International AIDS Society. In the long run, implementation of this standard would save billions of dollars in treatment cost by prevention of opportunistic infections, but in the short term, it would make ADAP waiting lists soar. So we have yet to see advocates even begin to call for it.

Besides, without real health care reform, not some tinkering at the edges, we are still left in a situation where some 50 percent of people infected with HIV have no primary care provider…that’s in the United States, still, even after the economic crisis, the richest country in the history of the world.

As for services, they continue to be rationed, not along some rational mechanism, but most irrationally based on formulas that were developed nearly two decades ago. But how many people do we hear calling for rethinking Ryan White, perhaps along the lines of an entitlement such as was recommended by the Academy of Medicine report several years ago? No, all of AIDS Inc. has climbed on the band wagon for at least a three year reauthorization that would keep the same inequitable distribution of resources because we are all afraid of what we might lose if we made the legislation actually work for people living with the virus instead of the grantees and providers of services.

And housing for every person with HIV who needs it? (See, I told you I would get to the assigned topic!) Let’s first talk about housing as treatment. The studies are legion. There is no longer any debate: Housing, especially when coupled with psychosocial case management, dramatically increases engagement in primary care and adherence to medication. It’s really that simple. But just to put a point on the argument, this year saw the publication of the results of the first study ever in which homeless persons with chronic medical conditions were randomly assigned housing as the controlled intervention.

Called the Chicago Housing for Health Partnership Study, or CHHP, it looked at some 400 hospitalized homeless individuals with chronic medical conditions, one third of whom had HIV. Two hundred received housing and case management and 200 received customary care, a hospital social worker and generally a shelter referral. The variation was dramatic. Over 18 months, those who were housed had far more primary care visits, much greater adherence to treatment, and dramatically fewer emergency visits, hospitalizations, and nursing home stays. In fact, even when you added in the cost of housing and case management, and the cost of increased primary care visits, those who were housed over 18 months, cost the system over a million dollars less than the people who were left homeless.

Now let’s get to housing as prevention. First of all, let’s talk about homelessness as a risk factor. Here is what the research shows:

• Rates of HIV infection are 3 times to 16 times higher among persons who are homeless or unstably housed, compared to similar persons with stable housing;

• 3% to 14% of all homeless persons are HIV positive (10 times the rate in the general population); and

• Over time studies show that among persons at high risk for HIV infection due to injecting drug use or risky sex, those without a stable home are more likely than others to become infected.

Moreover, research shows a direct relationship between housing status and risk behaviors among extremely low income HIV+ persons with multiple behavioral issues:

• Homeless or unstably housed persons were 2 to 6 times more likely to use hard drugs, share needles or exchange sex than stably housed persons with the same personal and service use characteristics;

• Homeless youth were 4 to 5 times more likely to engage in high-risk drug use than youth in housing with some adult supervision and over twice as likely to engage in high-risk sex;

• Homeless women were 2 to 4 times as likely to have multiple sex partners as housed indigent women – in part due to the effects of physical violence; and

• Harm reduction and other behavioral prevention interventions are much less effective for participants who lack stable housing.

Finally, overtime studies show a strong association between change in housing status and risk behavior change:

• Over time, persons who improved housing status reduced risk behaviors by half; while persons whose housing status worsened over time were 4 times as likely to exchange sex; and

• Access to housing also increases access to appropriate care and antiretroviral medications which lower viral load, reducing the risk of transmission.

Now, let’s take that last point and couple it with what I said about offering ARVs. Imagine what would happen if we were offering housing or rental assistance to every single HIV-positive person who needed it, and offering every single person who is HIV-positive access to ARVs. Just with those two structural interventions, plus one other, you could bring the epidemic to a screeching halt even before we had a vaccine or a cure. Why, because the vast majority of people who go on ARVs before their immune systems are destroyed and are reasonably adherent…not perfectly, just reasonably…the viral load is reduced to an undetectable level.

What does that mean? Well, it means that particularly in sexual interactions, even without condoms, it becomes very difficult to transmit the virus. We would have dramatically reduced the viral pool, making reliance on changing individual behaviors in moments of passion and ecstasy, whether natural or chemically induced, no longer the principle vehicle for preventing transmission. Couple that with clean needles for IV drug users, Medicaid or insurance-funded hormones for transgender folk, and treatment for HIV-positive pregnant women, particularly at time of delivery, and we would have cut off just about every means of viral transmission. Not that is prevention that follows science!

But don’t expect it from this Administration, because we will have spent so much money on war in Afghanistan and its neighbors, bailing out the banks, saving Chrysler and General Motors, and tinkering with health care reform, that ending AIDS will just be too expensive and looking at the life-time costs of infections averted will seem too remote and hypothetical.

By the way, earlier I said there was one more piece to the equation. That’s ending stigma. As you all probably know, the CDC and a number of states have recommended or adopted policies and legislation calling for universal testing, and to make that more likely, the lifting of laws that require informed consent to be tested. As David Holtgrave at Johns Hopkins University has pointed out, in a study the CDC paid him to do, “what a colossal waste of resources.” Sorry, my paraphrase! We know that the epidemic has really dug its way into certain marginalized populations. Talking about a generalized epidemic is good public relations, but it just isn’t true. Even in the District of Columbia, the epidemic is overwhelmingly African-American and/or gay. And among African Americans, it is men who have sex with men, IV drug users, and their sexual partners. Hello?

Want to get more people tested? End stigma. And I am not just talking about stigma about HIV. I am talking about homophobia. I am talking about stigma about drug use. I am talking about our prudishness about SEX! How many women in American go every year faithfully putting their feet in the stirrups for their annual pap smear without ever being told that it’s a test for a sexually transmitted disease, much less being asked by the gynecologist about their sex life or having it suggested that they should have an anal pap smear too, because some 50 percent of American women have had anal sex, and that’s not counting finger play. Hey, guys, I’m not just talking to the gay men now, you ever had anyone stick a finger in your ass? Did anyone ever suggest to you that you might ought to have an anal pap smear for HPV, which just happens to be a precursor to rectal cancer in men and women?

I’ve got no problem with universal HIV testing every year or six months if the insurance companies want to pay for it, but how about if we just trained medical professionals to have honest conversations with their patients about sex and drug use and then offered the test where indicated? We could then use the money we save the insurance companies to make universal offerings of voluntary testing not just in prison, but in pre-arraignment detention centers, in mental health programs, in shelters for homeless people, in low income communities with high addiction rates and to men who are hooking up with other men. You get my drift.

The point is this: We know what we need to do to end the AIDS pandemic both here in the United States and around the globe. It’s not rocket science. It’s common sense. The reason we are not doing it is not a lack of resources. It is, plain and simple, we are not doing it because we lack the political will. And that lack of political will is driven by in principal part by homophobia, racism and sexism, coupled with stigma against IV drugs and users, fueled by a misguided fifty-year old war on drugs and on people who use drugs…except alcohol and cigarettes, which are good drugs because we can levy heavy taxes on them and people keep on drinking and smoking.

My friends, President Obama isn’t going to change this. At his very best, his is just going to manage at the margins, unless we do something big. And all of our outreach and prevention efforts are going to be like trying to empty the ocean with a sand bucket unless we take seriously our responsibility to build a new and reenergized AIDS activist movement that demands what we need to at long last bring this epidemic to an end.

Some of you are perhaps too young to remember, but here in the home of one of the few remaining active chapters of ACT UP, you should know that nothing that is available for prevention, services, or treatment came about because some politician woke up one morning and said I have a great idea that I am going to put into law today. Everything we have, we owe to brave men and women fighting for their lives, who took to the streets with creativity and flair, going to jail time and time again in non-violent acts of civil disobedience, marching, going on the hill, getting in the face of the news media and anyone else who had influence to demand that our government address that which was killing us.

We desperately need that very same kind of activism today. We need new leaders to rise up, new voices to join the chorus… whether eloquent and rude…to demand, loud and clear, real health care reform that includes access to ongoing primary care for every person living in this country. We need to demand universal access and offering of ARVs to every single person who is infected with HIV. We need to demand HIV services, not allocated as a formula based on geography, but as an entitlement of every person who is infected. We need to demand housing, not just for every person living with the virus, but as a basic human right, as recognized in the Declaration of Human Rights decades ago. We need to demand an end of sexism that allows the President to boast that a women’s health issue is a lower priority. We need to demand an end to homophobia that leads this Administration to actually argue against equal justice for Queer folk. And we need to demand an end to racism that is really at the core of the war on drugs that has now destroyed more Black families through incarceration than were destroyed in this country through slavery. And finally, we need to demand that we treat AIDS outside the United States with the very same level of commitment to human life and dignity as we treat it here at home.

Let me conclude by quoting Barack Obama, candidate for president of the United States: “I’m asking you to believe,” he said. “Not just in my ability to bring about real change in Washington…I’m asking you to believe in yours.”

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek…We are the hope of the future; the answer to the cynics who tell us our house must stand divided; that we cannot come together; that we cannot remake this world as it should be.

Because we know what we have seen and what we believe – that what began as a whisper has now swelled to a chorus that cannot be ignored; that will not be deterred; that will ring out across this land as a hymn that will heal this nation, repair this world, and make this time different than all the rest – Yes. We. Can.”

Cheap is the new cool but will America stay thrifty?

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:20:00

“When Jeff Yeager’s book “The Ultimate Cheapskate” came out 18 months ago, he felt like a voice crying in the wilderness telling people to ditch their cell phones, hoard their pennies and pay off the mortgage. . .”

Travel ban on the way out

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:18:00

Thanks in part to insistent pressure from AIDS advocates over the last six weeks, the Obama administration has finally taken meaningful steps toward lifting the hated two-decades-old ban on travel and immigration to the U.S. by HIV-positive individuals.

Comments are now requested, and are needed to address the regulation fully—including the fact that Health and Human Services “welcomes public comment” on the costs and benefits of mandatory HIV testing for immigrants.

After delays, confusion and years of waiting, on Tuesday, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) released a proposed regulation that would overturn the ban. The agency rescinded it briefly after realizing that the Department of Health and Human Services had sent them the wrong version (oops!). Politico reported the original version calculated the cost and estimated new infections for 20 years, as opposed to five in the corrected proposal officially published in the federal registry today.

Not so fast

Although the regulation seeks to fully overturn the ban, it includes some troubling assumptions that will need to be countered in public comments.

The regulation makes a “tentative conclusion” that “this change may be economically significant” even though countries that don’t have an HIV immigration ban (almost every country in the world) report very few non-citizens relying on government medical care.
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The regulation also leaves the door open for mandatory HIV testing of immigrants by stating, “Although the approach of removing HIV from the definition of communicable disease of public health significance but maintaining the mandatory testing component of the medical examination was not selected for this proposal, HHS/CDC welcomes public comment on the advantages and disadvantages of this or alternative approaches, such as (non-mandatory) testing ( i.e.,opt out/opt in approach).”

There will be 45 days to comment on the regulation and ensure that this ban is finally overturned, so advocates will definitely take HHS/CDC up on its offer, and debunk their inaccurate assumptions.

Although the AIDS community has been advocating against the travel ban for years, it didn’t appear to be on the Obama administration’s pressing priority list. The ban became an embarrassment, however, after a group of Canadian citizens were denied entry to the United States to attend the North American Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit, resulting in Andrew Sullivan airing the issue on Anderson Cooper 360. This was followed by the International AIDS Society condemning the ban and stating its desire to hold the 2012 International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C.

The week of the Canadian kerfuffle, a group of activists were suddenly invited to a meeting with the OMB, Centers for Disease Control and AIDS czar Jeffrey Crowley regarding the lifting of the ban. Now the OMB has released its proposal and even cut the comment period from 60 days to 45 days. That’s change—and expediency—we can believe in.

Keeping the OMB on track

Once the regulation is officially published, advocates will have 45 days for comment. The CDC will develop responses to the comments; a final regulation will be drafted and submitted to OMB for up to 90 days for a second review, before publishing the final review.

The new reg is certainly the beginning of the end of a long national nightmare of the travel and immigration ban. A 1993 law preventing HIV-positive people from entering the U.S. was repealed in July 2008 by Congress and President Bush as part of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). But for the entry ban to be fully repealed the regulatory change that HHS will propose must also be made.

The OMB suggests that like-minded individuals submit short, identical comments to reduce the amount of time HHS needs to review and comment on letters.

We’ll keep you posted when it’s drafted so you can start commenting away, and make sure the ban is lifted once and for all!

photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmewuji/297723538/

Obama’s ugly AIDS truth

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:23:02

Housing Works President and CEO Charles King provoked the crowd in a speech at the Philadelphia FIGHT 10th Annual Prevention and Outreach Summit last week when he called out President Barack Obama for his failure to lead the fight against HIV/AIDS or advance the cause of other progressive issues.

“I like Obama. I really do. I’m just here to tell you when it comes to AIDS or any other progressive cause you might care about, Barack Obama is not the change you all have been looking for,” King said in the speech to a crowd of 650 advocates, people living with AIDS and community members.

His remarks were met with both a standing ovation from half of the audience (and props from the conference organizers) but also scattered hisses and boos. A few people left mid-speech.

“I was aware during the speech that I was making some people uncomfortable, but they were pretty much drowned out by the applause and ovation at the end,” King said.

“I thought Charles’ speech was great and that he told the truth about Obama’s lack of response to the AIDS epidemic, and a lot of issues the Obama administration has ignored,” said Jose de Marco, a member of ACT UP Philadelphia who attended the conference. de Marco said that the audience was divided in its response to the speech. “A lot of audience members were people of color and they didn’t like hearing the truth and hearing it from a white person,” de Marco said. “Some people felt like, ‘He’s saying our Black president is screwing up on AIDS.’ “

Rev. Dr. Ernest McNear, Pastor True Gospel Tabernacle Church of God in Christ, disagreed with that criticism and said “I never looked at it as a white guy talking about Barack Obama. I looked at the director of an AIDS group making the case for the needs for the AIDS community now. The urgency was there. He certainly did challenge this administration, but also was able to speak positively of the administration in spite of the criticisms.”

McNear said he requested a copy of the speech and will be adapting it to use in his work.

Obama’s disappointments

In the speech, King decried the Obama administration’s lack of progress on creating a National AIDS Strategy; lifting the HIV travel ban; lifting the ban on federal funding for syringe exchange; and for cutting funding for global AIDS and housing.

At a meeting with National Director of AIDS Policy Jeff Crowley and other members of the administration last month, when AIDS activists questioned why Obama couldn’t issue an executive order lifting the HIV travel ban they were told “This Administration stands for two things. Change, of course, and the rule of law. We don’t circumvent regulations when we don’t like them. We follow the proper procedures to change them.”

In his speech, King said, “Of course, if they don’t like the CEO of General Motors, they don’t need any regulatory authority to fire him. They just shove him out the door as a condition for the bailout. Meanwhile, real people are suffering because of a rule that everyone now agrees is stigmatizing and counter to good public health policy.”

King also criticized the Obama administration for its defense of the Defense of Marriage Act and “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” its treatment of political prisoners and the Obama administration’s hypocrisy surrounding choosing what issues to fast track.

“Not only is Obama not proving progressive on AIDS, but in some regards we are moving backwards in this Administration,” King said, saying at one point “150 days into this administration, it is amply clear that Obama is in fact governing as a moderately conservative Democrat, much in the strain of his predecessor, Bill Clinton.”

Read King’s full speech.

Youth take to the streets

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 10:57:01

When San Francisco’s Iris Center Executive Director Angela Green spoke to participants at the Youth Action Institute (YAI) last Tuesday about the impact of California’s budget cuts on her organization, she didn’t expect much more than sympathy. But then Kimberly Jefferson of Hampton, Virginia, said, “We’re here for three days. What can we do to help?”

After consulting with Green, Jefferson and 23 other burgeoning youth activists from as far as China and Australia got to work planning a demonstration outside Iris Center, which provides lifesaving services to women with HIV in San Francisco’s Castro and Mission district. Galvanized by Green’s sense of urgency, the group rearranged the YAI schedule in order to spend three days seeking media coverage, creating messaging and organizing a demonstration outside of Iris Center’s facilities. At the demo, participants passed out fliers that read, “We can’t allow people to die alone” and held up signs that read “Honk against AIDS cuts” to publicize the $175,000 in cuts to Iris Center’s budget.

“I see a growing demographic of African-American women who are infected and then California is cutting these services,” Jefferson said.

Because of California’s horrible budget crisis, it has planned to eliminate more than $160 million in HIV services as part of more than $5.5 billion in tentative new cuts to health and human services.This would gut the state’s Ryan White AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) and eliminate services such as HIV counseling and testing, early intervention programs, and home and community-based care programs. California AIDS activists held a mass demonstration in Sacramento on June 10.

Youth-run and adult supported

The YAI demonstration Friday was the first time some of the participants had ever participated in an activist event.

“The night before the rally we went to the same place and did outreach, and I was really uncomfortable passing out fliers and such. But during the rally I was lying on the sidewalk in protest,” said Summer Sterling, 21, of Silver Spring, Maryland. “I wasn’t thinking twice about how I looked.”

Organized by the Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA), the Youth Action Institute was held at the UC-Berkeley campus over five days. The purpose of YAI is for young AIDS activists between the ages of 16 and 24 and many living with HIV to learn from each other and more experienced AIDS activists and take that information back to their home towns and engage in an on-the-ground AIDS advocacy project.

“The culture and diversity really made the experience unique. A lot of times we speculate as to what demographic HIV/AIDS affects, even those of us who are affected,” said Jefferson, 25, who has followed in the footsteps of her activist father Greg Fordham. Fordham is the HIV-positive founder of C2EA’s Virginia chapter.

In addition to hearing presentations from advocates in the Bay Area, as well as participating in sessions led by Housing Works President and CEO Charles King and Health GAP grassroots organizer Kaytee Riek, the YAIers ran many of the sessions themselves.

“YAI was youth-run and adult-supported,” said Anthony Roberts of Miami. “We were hearing from experts, but the group brought experience and expertise.”

Some youth participants had experience with street outreach. Others were bilingual. Roberts, 24, was a marketing/communications major at Johnson & Wales, and he used his knowledge to teach the group about gaining media coverage—skills that paid off when Friday’s rally garnered press coverage in the California Chronicle. He is working on designing a social marketing and media campaign in Miami for his YAI project.

This year’s YAI was the first that truly used social networking and communication to advance its message. Carrie Rheingans, 27, a participant from last year’s YAI and one of the event’s organizers, taught a session about online organizing and posted on twitter throughout the conference. The group also started a blog, youthactioninstitute.wordpress.com:“http://youthactioninstitute.wordpress.com/” where they will report on their projects.

The participants continue to stay connected (via Facebook of course), and have committed to staying involved with the Campaign to End AIDS.

After hitting up the Bay Area, this year’s participants are considering holding next year’s YAI in Shreveport, Louisiana, and hold a public outreach campaign during the annual Crawfish Festival next June.

YAI participant Justin Coleman, 21, who’s from Shreveport, said, “There’s not much activism here around HIV and AIDS. It would be a good thing to open up everyone’s eyes.”

TransJustice now!

Wed, 01 Jul 2009 06:07:01

Just in time for the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, nearly 1,000 transgender people and allies gathered, rallied and marched at the fifth-annual Transgender Day of Action on Friday.

The approximately 900-person strong group started in Union Square and took to the streets demanding an end to violence and discrimination towards transgender and gender-nonconforming people.

They then marched to the Human Resources Administration (HRA) to demand that the city agency adopt a policy to prevent discrimination against transgender people seeking and utilizing public assistance, which is yet to be in place despite five long years of negotiations.

The Transgender Day of Action was organized by TransJustice, which is run by the Audre Lorde Project.

What do we want? Trans justice!

Although the weather was sunny, many of the participants carried yellow umbrellas with black writing, calling on HRA to implement a new procedure to prevent transphobic discrimination for people who receive public assistance. HRA is working with a number of organizations, including TransJustice, Queers for Economic Justice and Housing Works, to implement these changes. TransJustice organizers expected the changes to be implemented by last week and marched to the HRA Waverly Center to voice their disappointment that the changes haven’t happened.

When the marchers converged at HRA, protesters screamed “What do we want? Trans justice! When do we want it? Now!”

In addition to fighting the HRA policy, the Transgender Day of Action participants rallied against police brutality, discrimination and a host of other concerns.

Many participants said they appreciated the demonstration as a way to fight back against marginalization in their day-to-day lives.

“I get hissed at every day for being a transsexual female,” said Angela Therien, a member of Housing Works’ Transgender Evening Program who attended the march. “People are ignorant and insult me without knowing what I feel like.”

GENDA Update

One issue not discussed at the protest was the Gender Expression Nondiscrimination Act (GENDA). Although organizers endorsed “equal access to employment and education opportunities,” the Audre Lorde Project and the Sylvia Rivera Law Project don’t endorse GENDA because of a provision in the legislation that extends hate crime legislation to transgender people. These organizations believe that hate crime legislation is a tool in the “prison industrial complex” that can actually be used against transgender people.

All protected classes that are added to the New York Human Rights law automatically are included in the law protecting them as victims of hate crimes. Housing Works and other organizations that endorse GENDA believe that the hate crimes statute is a separate issue, and should not stand in the way of GENDA’s passage, which would bar bias on the basis of of gender identity and expression.

Sen. Tom Duane said that he had planned to introduce GENDA to the Senate floor for a vote right before the Senate coup, telling the Update this week that GENDA’s passage is “high, high up, and one of my uppermost priorities.”

But with the New York State Senate out of commission, advocates who have pushed for GENDA are skeptical of its passage.

“I just don’t think it’s going to happen,” said Tracy Bumpus, a transgender activist and Housing Works case manager. “I want it to though. I’m tired of fighting for this every year.”

House Health Care Bill Gets Props

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 12:12:00

AIDS advocates were pleased to see that House’s health care reform draft bill introduced last week has a number of important provisions that benefit poor people living with HIV/AIDS. Most notably, the bill would expand Medicaid eligibility for people with HIV who are not yet sick by including the Early Treatment for HIV Act (ETHA) in the proposal.

The inclusion of ETHA in health care reform would allow states to amend their Medicaid laws to include people with HIV, who in many states don’t qualify for Medicaid because they aren’t considered “sick.”

“This is exactly the type of common-sense measure we need to include as we craft comprehensive health reform legislation,” ETHA’s House sponsor Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) said in a statement. “Treating patients with HIV before the disease progresses to full-blown AIDS is not only more cost-effective for our health care system, but more importantly, it will also save lives while preserving the quality of life for thousands of persons living with HIV.”

ETHA was not included in any of the Senate versions of the bill, so advocates will still have to push hard for the language to make it into the final legislation. But an additional plus is that the Obama administration has unequivocally stated its support for ETHA.

In a hearing with of the House Energy and Commerce Committee Wednesday, Engel asked Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius if the Obama Administration supports the Early Treatment for HIV Act (ETHA), and if the provision is passed, would she work with the states to ensure they enact it. Sebelius responded, “Yes.”

Other good news

And thanks to the hard work of AIDS advocates, the House bill also includes many other notable improvements from the current health care system for people with HIV. The plan includes a public health insurance option (though it is unknown what such a plan would look like), and also increases Medicaid eligibility to incomes below 133 percent of the federal poverty line.

Another great fix would close a loophole in the Medicare Part D legislation. People on Medicare Part D prescription drug benefits reach the dreaded “donut hole” when the cost of their meds exceeds $2,510. They can’t receive Medicare Part D benefits until they pay a $4,050 out of pocket, referred to as “true out of pocket costs” or TrOOP. ADAP as TrOOP would allow the joint state-federal AIDS Drugs Assistance Programs (ADAP) to pay the $4,050.

What happens next?

But the House bill is just that, a bill, and it is unclear how well it will fare when the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis takes place. “I rate the chances of the House bill surviving as better than 50/50,” said William Arnold, Title II Community AIDS Action Network CEO.

And Treatment Access Expansion Project Executive Director Robert Greenwald said, “This is not the time to rest on our laurels.”

“The House bill has a lot of things in it. I’m not convinced that the CBO score is very high. Now is the time we push hard and make sure these improvements are included in the final legislation,” Greenwald said.

Whatever plan is made, of course, probably won’t be ideal. A single-payer health care plan is the best, and what Housing Works, as well as many other AIDS advocates, have pushed for. But this option doesn’t look to be in the cards.

“We’ve been ratcheting down our expectations from a single payer plan,” said Ernest Hopkins, federal affairs director of San Francisco AIDS Foundation. “But getting something in place and then incrementally improving it has been a way of achieving specific advancements. I’m very optimistic we’ll have reform by the middle of October. That’s much better than we have now. That covers thousands of more people with HIV, categorical eligibility will go away, and we’ll have a public insurance option of some form.”

People with AIDS in the United States are poorer than the general population and also more likely to lack adequate health care. Forty-five percent of people with HIV/AIDS in the United States have incomes under $10,000 a year, and 50 percent lack regular medical coverage.

What about Ryan White?

In the long term, changes to health care would hopefully mean that the Ryan White CARE Act could be used to fund support services and be the “payer of last resort” as it’s intended to be. If more people are eligible for Medicaid, there will be less need for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program.

“We won’t see any actual change on the ground until two to three years out when we’ll see if ADAP is spending its money,” Arnold said. “In the short term, Ohio’s about the go belly up. 150 people on ADAP waiting lists. Arizona’s cutting eligibility. Who knows how all these things will play out at the local level?”

The Ryan White CARE Act is set to sunset in September 2009, and most AIDS advocates are calling for at least three-year extension of the program with some technical fixes until health care reform is better sorted out. Those fixes would include allowing provisions of food pursuant to a doctor’s prescription of nutrition as a core medical service; medical transportation as a core medical service; and helping stabilize State ADAPs Programs by ensuring that rebate income may be spent after federal funds are dispersed. See the full documents.

The majority of the Senate Health committee supports the fixes made by the majority of AIDS advocates.

Housing Works and Campaign to End AIDS offered the minority view that change is needed sooner.

Most AIDS groups oppose Senator Enzi’s (R-WY) amendment to the Affordable Health Choices Act bill (Health Care Reform) now under consideration by the Senate Health Committee that would extend Ryan White for five years without any fixes.

PWAs, Pull Up a Chair

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 09:56:00

The feds say that a New York City Ryan White Planning Council resolution passed last week doesn’t violate any federal rules, paving the way for a groundbreaking new policy mandating that some AIDS Service Organizations that receive Ryan White funding include HIV-positive clients on their boards of directors.

The Council voted 20 to 2 that non-profit organizations receiving Ryan White Part A funds that primarily serve HIV-positive clients must have a consumer (someone who uses the organizations’ services) sit on their boards of directors. The members of the New York City Department of Health (DOH) who sit on the Planning Council cautioned last Thursday that the resolution might be nonbinding because of Human Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) policies. However, HRSA’s said otherwise.

“There are no HRSA rules that either allow or prohibit the Council from making rules that influence the make-up of boards of organizations receiving Ryan White Part A funds,” said HRSA spokesperson David Bowman.

A spokesperson from the DOH said it is consulting with its legal department because the resolution “has numerous implications that need to be explored.”

Last Thursday, the Planning Council voted 20 to 2 “that all non-profit organizations receiving Ryan White Part A funds shall be required to include no less than one (1) HIV-positive consumer, who is willing to be known as such to the public, and who has been elected by other consumers of that organization to its board of directors, except in the case of grant recipients not directly serving primarily HIV-positive clients, in which case the consumer representative(s) may be elected to that organization’s existing board of directors, advisory board or other appropriate body.”

DOH, as the feds’ grantee, is required to carry out the Council’s resolutions. If the DOH doesn’t comply with Council resolutions, the Council can refuse to pass motions that the grantee needs to operate, fail the grantee in its yearly assessment or call for HRSA intervention.

But hopefully it won’t come to this. Asking organizations receiving city funding to alter personnel and hiring practices is nothing new.

“I’m outraged that the DOH has any doubts about carrying forward this resolution,” said Housing Works President and CEO Charles King. “The Planning Council resolution is no different than San Francisco requiring organizations to amend their personnel policies to requiring city contractors to provide domestic partner insurance coverage.” Housing Works supports the Council’s resolution.

Denver Principles in action

This resolution was an outgrowth of the PWA-empowerment-focused Denver Principles Project, which most New York AIDS service organizations have endorsed. At the Planning Council meeting, speakers accused these groups of hypocrisy for endorsing PWA involvement without having a board member who is HIV-positive.

Although this resolution will affect many nonprofit organizations receiving Ryan White Part A funds, the resolution was of particular interest to members of the Gay Men’s Health Crisis Client Advisory Board (CAB), which has been calling on GMHC to have a seat on their board of directors for the past two years.

“I suspect we’ll get some pushback from the leadership at GMHC. If we have to, we’ll pursue legal action,” said Joseph Sellman, a member of GMHC’s CAB.

GMHC didn’t respond to the Update’s request for comment by deadline.

Books, Quiche Rock ‘N’ Roll

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:26:00

“Amanda Palmer was fresh off a sold-out show for 700 at the Highline Ballroom in Chelsea. . .”

Sound the Alarm!

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 16:00:00

President Barack Obama has been a big disappointment on the AIDS front so far.

His 2010 budget cuts funding to fight AIDS globally, cuts funding for federal AIDS housing, and fails to lift the federal ban on syringe exchange. Now it’s up to Congress to push back against Obama’s cuts. Starting next week AIDS activists around the country are going to Sound the Alarm during the National Week to Fight AIDS by targeting members of Congress to make changes to Obama’s misguided budget.

“President Obama’s budget is not what we have hoped for. Congress has the ability to go in to increase funding for additional programs and now is the time to be targeting them,” said Health GAP grassroots organizer Kaytee Riek

From June 30 to July 7 there will be actions across the country aimed at key members of Congress who control the nation’s purse strings. There will be a march to Rep. Obey’s office in Wisconsin; activists are targeting him because he is chair of the House Appropriations Committee, which has the power to lift the federal ban on syringe exchange. There will also be a march from Sen. Arlen Specter’s office in Pennsylvania to Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s office in New Jersey. Both are members of the Senate appropriations committee.

On July 7, everyone is encouraged to call Speaker Nancy Pelosi to demand that she “work with the Appropriations Committee to improve President Obama’s budget and secure sufficient funding for AIDS programs in the US and around the world.”

People who live in 13 states (California, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin) have a special responsibility to speak up! In these states, a Senator sits on an especially important Subcommittee of the Appropriations Committee, which decides funding for all programs in the U.S. It’s up to that committee to fix the three major issues in the Obama budget. See how to contact these senators

Change that’s time has come

In Obama’s proposed budget, AIDS housing does not even keep pace with inflation or meet its anticipated demand for the year, let alone develop desperately needed new housing, even as new infections continue to rise. Congress needs to increase the Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS (HOPWA)‘s budget by the $50 million dollars, to $360 million.

Wealthy countries have not kept their promises to increase funding for the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB, and Malaria, which is facing a $5 billion funding shortfall and is cancelling entire rounds of funding and cutting existing grants.

On the campaign trail, Obama heralded the Fund as a key investment. But his 2010 budget did not request any new money for the Global Fund.

Congress needs to increase funding for the Global Fund to the U.S.’ fair share—$2.7 billion—to avoid cuts to grants.

As recently as this winter, President Obama has said that he is strongly in favor of lifting the current ban on using federal funds for syringe exchanges. But he failed to remove the ban from the appropriations bill, citing that this is not the right time and place. But there is no other way to lift the ban besides removing the language banning federal funding. And if we do not do it now, that means millions more HIV infections this year. As the administration tells us, every 9 and 1/2 minutes there’s a new infection in the United States.

Sound the Alarm is sponsored by ACT-UP Philadelphia, African Services Committee, America Medical Students Association, Artists for A New South Africa, Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project, Global Action for Children, Housing Works , New York City AIDS Housing Network and Proyecto Sol Philadelphia. But anyone can get involved! For more information about how to get involved contact soundthealarm.july7@gmail.com or go to sound-the-alarm.org

Happy HIV Testing Day

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 15:43:00

Tomorrow is National HIV Testing Day, an important reminder that HIV testing is the first step to linking people with lifesaving care, as well as an opportunity to provide counseling for people who test both HIV-positive and negative. This occasion should also serve as a reminder that HIV testing laws should maintain true written informed consent and counseling.

There are currently four bills floating around Albany that would change Article 27-f HIV rules regarding counseling and testing. And while the chance of any of these bills being passed in Albany this session is incredibly unlikely, today is as good a day as any to remember the principles Housing Works recommends for any HIV testing legislation. Twenty-five organizations have endorsed the principles, including the New York Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal, Legal Action Center and Bronx AIDS Services:

• Our goal is not testing for testing’s sake. Getting more people tested should not be an end in itself, but rather, a way to reduce the overall number of cases of HIV transmission to connect HIV-infected people with lifesaving care;

• Streamlining the HIV testing process does not require eliminating the protections that informed consent provides, and this is consistent with CDC recommendations;

• Expanding access to testing for all New Yorkers can be done by making HIV-related testing a routine part of primary care;

• It is critical that people freely choose to be tested for HIV and provide informed consent in writing prior to the test to indicate that testing is being done voluntarily;

• Informed consent means that people affirmatively choose whether or not to be tested for HIV, not that they are given the option to decline to be tested;

• People should be fully informed about the availability of anonymous testing, who will have access to the results of the test, how those results can be used and what legal protections exist to vindicate any resulting discrimination before they choose to be tested

• Existing confidentiality protections that do not operate as a barrier to testing must be retained.

Now, with those simple guidelines in place, test away!

To get involved in the fight to retain written informed consent in New York State or endorse the above principles, contact terri smith-caronia at smith-caronia@housingworks.org.

Planning Council Approves Resolution to Get Clients on ASO Boards

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 19:06:01

New Yorkers living with HIV who access the services of Ryan White-funded organizations struck a symbolic but powerful blow yesterday, asserting their right to have a hand in the running of the organizations intended to help them.

The New York City Ryan White Planning Council passed a resolution 20 to 2 on Thursday calling on non-profit organizations receiving Ryan White Part A funds that primarily serve HIV-positive clients to have a consumer sit on their Board of Directors. While the Department of Health said that the resolution is nonbinding, it nonetheless is a huge credibility boost to the efforts of a group of clients at Gay Men’s Health Crisis (GMHC) who have pressed the organization for consumer representation for two years.

The DOH members on the Planning Council were the only members to vote against the resolution.

“You have a Planning Council because of people living with AIDS. You have an agency and a job because of people living with AIDS. I need you and you need me,” said Antionettea Etienne, co-chair of the Planning Council Consumer Advisory Group, in her comments to the full Planning Council. The Consumer Advisory Group had approved the groundbreaking resolution the Saturday prior to this week’s meeting.

There was deliberation and lively audience comments. Speaker after speaker called on the Planning Council to remember the Denver Principles. A half-dozen people living with HIV/AIDS spoke in favor of the resolution, including numerous GMHC clients, as well as longtime AIDS activists Housing Works President and CEO Charles King and POZ founder Sean Strub. Most community-based organizations in New York have signed on to the PWA-empowerment-focused Denver Principles project, and speakers accused these groups of hypocrisy for endorsing PWA involvement without having a board member.

“You signed on to the contract of the Denver Principles and you should live it,” said Russell Stevens, a member of GMHC’s client advisory board. “We who are in the trenches know what’s going on. How can someone on the board [who’s not a client] identify with the garbage we go through every day?”

While Housing Works’ bylaws require one-third of its board of directors to be consumers voted on by other clients, most New York community-based organizations that serve people with HIV/AIDS have no such requirements.

“If we really support the Denver Principles, let’s put some real teeth into it,” King said, noting that Housing Works has been enriched by its consumer board membership

Resolution diluted?

The resolution stated “that all non-profit organizations receiving Ryan White Part A funds shall be required to include no less than one (1) HIV-positive consumer, who is willing to be known as such to the public, and who has been elected by other consumers of that organization to its board of directors, except in the case of grant recipients not directly serving primarily HIV-positive clients, in which case the consumer representative(s) may be elected to that organization’s existing board of directors, advisory board or other appropriate body.”

The resolution that passed was amended from the Consumer Advisory Group’s resolution to exempt organizations that don’t primarily serve HIV-positive clients, such as hospitals and any non-AIDS service organization. The original resolution would have required all bodies receiving Part A funding to have an HIV-positive client on its board of directors. Dena Rakower, a Planning Council member and Bellevue Hospital staffer suggested the amendments.

While no Council members objected, the change angered many of those who spoke at public comment.

“This totally dilutes it!” Strub yelled out.

“The hospitals were happy to take Planning Council money when the new case management proposal came up a few months ago, but they don’t want us on their boards?” said Manuel Rivera, a GMHC client who has been pushing for this resolution.

Win for GMHC Consumer Advisory Board members

According to the DOH staffers in attendance, the Planning Council has no authority to dictate who should serve on the boards of organizations receiving Ryan White funding.

But despite what this might mean on a policy level, the GMHC Community Advisory Board (CAB) members who brought forth this resolution were overjoyed that the Planning Council legitimized their concerns. All groups receiving Ryan White funding are required to have a CAB. As governmental co-chair Jan Carl Park said at Thursday’s meeting, “some work well and some don’t.”

GMHC’s CAB has long raised concerns that GMHC doesn’t listen to its recommendations. GMHC has refused to appoint a consumer board member, citing reasons of confidentiality and other concerns.

“This will send a message to GMHC that we mean business,” said Joseph Sellman, a GMHC CAB member, who was smiling ear to ear after the resolution was passed.

City Council Restores Millions in AIDS Funding

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:05:00

For months, the Bloomberg Administration has argued that community-based case managers in HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) supportive housing serve the same role as the city’s HASA case workers in the lives of poor New Yorkers living with HIV. But after months of rallies, arrests, action alerts, budget hearings, and meetings between people with AIDS and their advocates, New York City Council Members were persuaded by ample evidence to the contrary. City Council is expected to vote today to restore $3.8 million in funding for community-based case managers in supportive housing.

These assurances were made to advocates by City Council members, although Council has not yet voted on the $15 billion budget deal reached by Bloomberg and Council Speaker Quinn. The budget is expected to pass, although it is based on the presumption that the State Senate will approve a new sales tax in New York City. See the full budget breakdown.

“A lot of [representatives from] supportive housing groups said, ‘The case manager was the person who came to me in the middle of the night, and we cannot keep these buildings going without them,’” said Council Member Gail Brewer, who fought for the restoration of funding. “Everyone on the Council wanted to put it back. I think everybody did really good advocacy.

In addition, the Council also will restore $491,000 to HIV Nutrition Services. This funding provides meals for 3,000 low-income individuals with HIV/AIDS every year, and serves as a gateway for Momentum AIDS Project to educate, counsel and link people to primary health care, mental health and substance abuse treatment, housing and other essential services.

Council members’ discretionary items for AIDS services and harm reduction, which took a huge hit last year have been maintained at last year’s funding levels.

A job well done

Advocates were thrilled that their hard work paid off. New York City AIDS Housing Network Executive Director Sean Barry said, “These cuts were sobering because we’d taken AIDS housing for granted in City Hall. We realized we really had to educate City Council about the importance of supportive housing.”

Matt Lesieur, Village Care of New York’s Director of Public Policy, agreed. “If we had stayed on the sidelines, the cuts were going to happen,” he said.

“Because of our meetings with Council Members, testimony at budget hearings and also remaining faithful on the steps throughout the budget process, it is clear that Council Members heard the advocates’ message: Cuts to supportive housing would have been incredibly detrimental to HASA clients,” said Kristin Goodwin, Housing Works Director of New York Policy and Organizing.

Council Members who emerged as leading supporters of restoring funding included Brewer, Bill deBlasio, Melissa Mark-Viverito, Rosie Mendez, Letitia James, Maria Baez, Robert Jackson, John Liu, Maria del Carmen Arroyo and Annabel Palma.

Now for the bad news…

Despite advocates’ case-management victory, there were was one clear defeat: Bloomberg’s $4 million cut to Scatter Site II (SSII) housing was not restored by City Council.

SSII offers housing to people in SROs as an intermediary step on the road to independent living. While SSII is widely seen as flawed—tenants are often assessed incorrectly and qualify for more substantial services—the cut is bad timing. New York City’s HOPWA funding has also been cut and the number of people with HIV/AIDS living in SROs is on the rise.

Scatter Site II providers place between 700 and 1,000 homeless people a year into supportive housing. Although no one will technically lose housing (HASA has said it will provide housing for all SSII residents), without SSII providers around to offer assistance, the number of people in SROs will almost certainly rise.

“Regardless of how people felt about Scatter Site II, every Scatter Site II had a waiting list,” said Barry. “From here on out there will be hundreds more people with HIV and AIDS in New York City who aren’t in permanent housing.”

The Mayor and City Council will likely call for more cuts after the elections in November. Bloomberg told advocates on the steps of City Hall last month that if they were upset now, “just wait until next year.”

Farewell David Hansell

Wed, 17 Jun 2009 19:34:00

Advocates for low-income New Yorkers were disappointed to learn Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) Commissioner David Hansell is resigning and taking a post in Washington, D.C. as Principal Deputy Assistant for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Hansell was widely viewed as an advocate for poor people.

This year, he oversaw the first increase in New York State’s basic public assistance grant in 19 years. He also joined the effort to save welfare-to-work job training for people with HIV.

“We wish Commissioner Hansell all the best in his new job. He accomplished a number of important things during his tenure,” said Shelley Nortz, deputy executive director for policy at the Coalition for the Homeless. “We thank David for his service and hope his successor will work with us to complete the work left to be done, including the development of a progressive plan to address the deepening problem of homelessness in New York State.”

Housing Works Vice President of New York Advocacy and Organizing terri smith-caronia said, “Throughout all his roles in city and state government, David Hansell valued community input and was an advocate for poor HIV-positive individuals and families here in New York.”

A Dedicated New Yorker

Hansell was appointed to the OTDA post after working as Human Resources Administration chief-of-staff to HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) commissioner Verna Eggleston, where he revamped and modernized HASA centers. A former Gay Men’s Health Crisis staffer, Hansell remained an ally to community organizations, alerting the community to discrepancies in the rental share paid by HASA tenants versus other rental programs.

From 1997 to 2001, Hansell was the Associate Commissioner for HIV Services at the New York City Department of Health and was the government representative for the NYC HIV Prevention Planning Group. He played a crucial role helping the DOH provide funding to combat HIV/AIDS in communities of color.

Hansell was instrumental in the creation of Housing Works’ Stand Up Harlem Houses, which provide housing to homeless or drug-addicted people living with HIV/AIDS in Harlem.

For a variety of reasons, many of them political, the Harlem facility took 17 years to complete. “I’ve followed the tortured history of this project, and it could have been abandoned at so many points,” Hansell told the Update at Stand Up Harlem’s ribbon cutting ceremony in October. “Once we make a commitment to a project, we maintain that commitment. We know there is a very high need in this community.”

Bali White Inspires

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 17:04:01

Bali White is Coordinator of Transgender Services at Housing Works. But she serves as more than just a support to the transgender women in her program—she’s an inspiration.

“I like how the girls are impacted by working with a member of their own community. I’m an example of what you can do,” said White, who is transgender. White was honored by New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson at an LGBT Pride Celebration on Tuesday for her work spearheading Housing Works’ pioneering services for HIV-positive and HIV-negative transgender New Yorkers, a population especially hard hit by AIDS.

Many transgender women believe that sex work is the only option they have to earn money. Bali explodes that myth by her example. “When I realized I was transgender, I thought that if you were trans, you also had to be a prostitute. It was really sold to me together,” White said.

White was able to avoid sex work through a combination of timing, a strong support system, and a commitment to education. But she realizes that, “when most girls get offered that opportunity, they don’t have other options.”

“I’m a square”

Some of White’s clients were initially skeptical of her. “They can sense I’ve never used drugs. I’m a square, as they say,” White said, laughing. “But that doesn’t mean I’ve never been homeless or had to deal with a lot of the struggles that they’ve had.”

A member of White’s transgender evening program, Vivian Lopez Ponce called White an “inspiration.”

“She’s educated, talented and has a fresh outlook on things,” Ponce said. “She’s encouraged me a great deal.” White and Ponce were featured in this widely seen PSA.

White was also instrumental in mobilizing Ponce and other clients to take buses to Albany to fight for the Gender Expression Nondiscrimination Act (GENDA). This bill would make it illegal to discriminate against people on the basis of gender identity or expression, a particularly important issue for transgender people.

“Politics isn’t something that necessarily excites me, but I go on lobby visits in Albany, because I know passing GENDA is incredibly important for transgender people to achieve equality in New York,” White said.

An extraordinary path

White was homeless when she first came to New York in 2000, after attending Howard University for a year. She originally hoped to become a dancer, but hadn’t yet transitioned, and was told she was too feminine to be cast.

She then got a job at Harlem United doing outreach with LGBT communities and started receiving hormones and transitioning from male to female.

White also received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Columbia University in 2006 and 2007. She worked for a short time as a phlebotomist and thought about being a biochemist but realized her passion lay in helping other transgender people. She joined Housing Works in 2008.

White is also working to change the narrative around relationships among transgender women whose sexual partners are often ignored, to the detriment of effective HIV outreach. She fought for a program at Housing Works, where partners come in one night a week.

“We’re missing half of the equation,” White said. “There’s this image of transpeople as solitary entities, but a lot of the girls are having sex, and their partners are exposed to the same risks.”

White hopes to expand her work internationally. She brought a priest who works with the transgender community in India to Housing Works and was also interviewed in a forthcoming documentary about LGBT issues in Jamaica.

“A lot of the issues are similar globally, and we can learn a lot from what has been done in other communities,” she said.

Photo credit: Marla Maritzer

Polo exec adds flair to trendy thrift shop

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 11:48:00

“Eleven months ago, trendy Housing Works Thrift Shops got even trendier with new President Richard Vorisek, who joined the nonprofit from fashionable clothier Polo Ralph Lauren. . .”

Pass GENDA!

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:39:01

New York City’s LGBT Pride March is right around the corner, on June 28. At Housing Works, we’re especially proud of our Coordinator of Transgender Services Bali White (pictured above, left, in a widely seen public service announcement about HIV with transgender Housing Works client Vivian Ponce . Bali was honored this week by New York City Comptroller Bill Thompson for her work spearheading Housing Works pioneering services for HIV-positive and HIV-negative transgender New Yorkers, a population especially hard hit by the AIDS epidemic. Read more about Bali and Housing Works’ efforts to push New York State to pass GENDA , legislation that would prohibit discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression.

Albany Gets Testy

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:57:01

Despite the mayhem in the State Senate’s this week, on Wednesday the Assembly held a spirited hearing regarding potential changes to New York State’s HIV testing and counseling legislation. Sponsored by Assemblymember Darryl Towns and the Black, Puerto Rican and Hispanic Caucus, the hearing at times felt like as much like a family squabble as a debate by longtime colleagues—the rhetoric was polite but heated, with discussions of race playing a large part in the discussion.

Important differences emerged over written informed consent and pre- and-post test counseling, with advocates on both sides of the policy divide claiming their positions would benefit blacks and Latinos, who remain disproportionately impacted by the AIDS epidemic.

New York’s Article 27-f requires doctors to supply a one-page form to patients to obtain their consent for an HIV test, and requires doctors to provide patients with pre- and post-test counseling. “The current law is deterring people of color from testing until they have an AIDS-defining illness,” Latino Commission on AIDS Executive Director Dennis deLeon said in his testimony. “This is a racist system.”

Most of the people testifying challenged deLeon’s claims that such requirements were barriers to testing.

“Why is it that we have so many more black men and women getting infected? It has nothing to do with this law,” Tokes Osubu, executive director of Gay Men of African Descent, said in his testimony. “When we offer a test, people take it.”

In a follow-up interview with the Update, Osubu said, “We’re playing the race card here and that’s disgusting.”

And many others challenged the claim that civil liberties no longer played a role in testing. “In the ’80s, when the face of the epidemic was gay white men, we put protections for civil liberties in place. I’m offended that we would want to lose these because this is now a disease of color and poverty,” said Housing Works Director of New York State Advocacy and Organizing terri smith-caronia.

Smith-caronia also took issue with calls to eliminate pre- and post-test counseling. “We’re not talking about a psychotherapy session. It’s a chat.”

Four on the floor?

There are currently four separate testing bills floating around the Legislature that would amend Article 27-f. All of the bills change the law to require the universal offering of HIV tests in doctors’ offices, emergency rooms and elsewhere and contain nuanced differences regarding how the tests are offered.

Latino Commission on AIDS, Harlem United and NBLCA support legislation sponsored by Towns and Sen. Hiram Monsserate (who is currently occupied attempting to take over the Senate) as well as legislation sponsored by Annette Robinson and Shirley Huntley. Both bills would remove written informed consent; the Towns/Monserrate legislation requires HIV tesing in doctors’ offices while the Robinson/Huntley bill only require testing in hospitals and emergency rooms.

Those three community groups strongly oppose a bill sponsored by Sen. Tom Duane and Assembly member Richard Gottfried that maintains written consent but uses an “opt-out” procedure instead of an opt-in procedure (simply put, opt-in means you specifically request the test and opt-out means you specifically ask not to have the test) .

None of the advocates support a bill sponsored by Assemblymember Nettie Mayersohn, which would eliminate written consent and pre- and post-test counseling.

“The Duane/Gottfried bill doesn’t move the fight far enough,” said Harlem United Director of Government Relations Soraya Elcock. The passionate Elcock said in her testimony that history will remember President Barack Obama’s election and the changes to HIV testing laws as the two most important events of 2009.

The Duane/Gottfried legislation is supported by the Legal Action Center, Gay Men’s Health Crisis and the New York Civil Liberties Union, because these groups view written informed consent as an important civil liberty that needs to be protected, and that oral consent is not adequate.

Housing Works doesn’t support any of the proposed legislation, because none of the laws require patients to opt in to testing, the only way to ensure that the process is truly consensual. See Housing Works principles on HIV testing.

What about pharma?

Although the tone of the hearing was largely a fight between often-allies, there was a question as to whether pharmaceutical companies have a hand in this fight. Pharma believes that written consent is a barrier to getting people diagnosed and into treatment.

“When you have pharma coming in and saying the law should be changed, this has nothing to do with what goes on in the doctor’s office,” Osubu said in his testimony.

Although Osubu did not discuss which pharmaceutical companies he was referring to, some advocates wonder if Gilead has put money into the testing fight. Gilead Pharmaceuticals funds Harlem United and a member of Gilead serves on the Harlem United board. Gilead and Harlem United share an Albany lobbyist.

Soraya Elcock of Harlem United emphatically denied any collaboration over 27-f: “Harlem United does not get any money from Gilead or any other pharmaceutical company to move this position. Written consent is a problem we have been working to address for years.”

What’s next?

Because the State Senate remains in flux, it is highly unlikely that any bill will be passed this legislative session, which ends in two weeks. There is still time to attempt to develop community consensus.

“We know there are still some tweaks we can make to it,” Towns told the Update after the hearing. “We are not as far away as it seems.”

In addition to Towns, Assemblymembers Robinson, Barbara Clark and Inez Barron attended the hearing, where more than a dozen AIDS advocates provided testimony.

“I don’t think we’ve ever had a hearing with as many people of color in the room,” Clark said. “No matter what side you’re on, I appreciate that we’re beginning to see the real importance of this issue to our community.”

Tom Duane Speaks!

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:39:00

With Albany in flux this week, rumors abounded about the AIDS community’s biggest ally Sen. Tom Duane. On Thursday, Duane spoke to the Update about the question marks surrounding GENDA and the 30 percent rent cap legislation. Duane told the Update that he planned to bring the Gender Expression Nondiscrimination Act (GENDA) to the floor this week, but the “plans got derailed” by the Senate coup.

“I had seen the published vote count and time was running short. I decided to get it on the floor and get it on the vote,” Duane said. “It’s unfortunate my plans were derailed by steps beyond my control. I just don’t know what the future holds.” GENDA would outlaw discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression statewide.

Duane also said despite conjecturing otherwise, that he’s sticking with the Democrats. “Today I am a Democrat and Malcolm Smith is my leader,” Duane said. “Just because I don’t attend one press conference doesn’t mean I’m leaving the conference.”

Some AIDS advocates said they’ll follow Duane wherever he may go.

“He’s still going to carry our bills,” said New York City AIDS Housing Network member Robert Tolbert. “I support him, no matter his party affiliation.”

Tolbert was on the steps of the Capitol Wednesday promoting one of the other bills sponsored by Duane, the 30 percent rent cap legislation. But this bill (S02664 and A02565) is facing another hurdle, apart from Senate mayhem. The Human Resources Administration and the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance created a last minute analysis claiming that only 72 HASA clients are evicted per year and that the bill would cost the City and State $28 million.

This analysis sharply contradicts an in-depth analysis by Ginny Shubert at Shubert Botein Associates, which shows a cost savings of $19 million.

The City and State analysis includes numerous errors. For example, HASA’s estimate of the amount of arrears paid every year for HASA clients is nearly 60 percent less than actual rent arrears payments revealed by a FOIL request response in 2008.

The bill was one of the few that passed through the Senate Social Services Committee because an analysis by Shubert Botein Associates showed an actual cost savings to the legislation.

Duane said he will look into the City and State’s analysis but is skeptical of its outcome. “I believe that Ginny Shubert’s analysis is extremely accurate and objective,” Duane said.

What about the City?

And with Albany not working, what will happen to the potential AIDS cuts in New York City? The short answer is they could get worse. If Albany remains paralyzed, the State can’t vote to approve new City sales and business taxes. If this revenue is unavailable, the City will be forced to make further cuts to the budget—which is bad news for AIDS services.

Despite the already heinous cuts to AIDS housing and nutrition, the majority of dollars for HIV services comes from City Council’s discretionary funding, which has yet to be allocated.

Alan Berkman: AIDS Warrior

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:53:00

On June 5 the world lost an AIDS warrior—Alan Berkman, a civil rights activist, an AIDS activist, and a pioneer in health service delivery for poor people from South Africa to the South Bronx. Alan passed away after a long, incredibly brave struggle with cancer.

Alan fought against social injustice wherever he found it. Among the many accomplishments in his extraordinary life, Alan was a visionary leader and mentor in the global struggle for HIV treatment access in developing countries.

Ten years ago Alan founded Health GAP. He was outraged that access to lifesaving HIV treatment in sub -Saharan African countries and the rest of the developing world was off the agenda of virtually the entire global AIDS and public health communities.

He was not afraid to call this crisis what it was—medical apartheid, racism, a crime against humanity. He was never afraid to speak out, even when it made powerful people uncomfortable.

His call to action among activists, people with HIV, and health service providers catalyzed successful campaigns to introduce treatment access in poor countries around the world.

Late-night ass-kicker

During the first New York meetings of what would become Health GAP, often running late into the night, Alan kicked us all in our asses. In a typically unvarnished, forceful and compelling way he laid out a simple—but nonetheless revolutionary—vision of access to medicines for all, rich or poor, North or South.

I remember hearing Alan describe how full of disgust he was after attending the Geneva International AIDS Conference in the summer of 1998—where the hypocritical theme “Bridging the Gap” starkly communicated the inattention of the mainstream AIDS scientific and research communities to the AIDS catastrophe happening in the developing world. Unlike others who would have been paralyzed or embittered, Alan instead developed a transformative vision of how to fight to win the bridging of the actual, tremendous gap—the one that, it seemed, no one was talking about.

Recounting those meetings now, what was most extraordinary is that he had the presence of mind and conviction to believe that we could actually win—we could be powerful Davids taking on Goliath after Goliath, through new relationships of global solidarity in activism.

We’d say, “It’s Africa—the media won’t pay attention! The U.S. government will say treatment for all its too expensive! The World Health Organization will say its not cost effective!” And he would shake his head and say, “It doesn’t matter, we can do it, we must do it, because we are on the side of what is right.”

Those ideas were almost heretical only ten years ago. But because of Alan’s abiding commitment and vision, now millions of people have access to life-saving HIV treatment. And just as important, the very concept that expensive, complex health interventions should only be reserved for those in wealthy countries has been shattered forever.

The progress we have made in scaling up HIV treatment coverage is due to the work of countless people around the world. But without Alan’s serene and relentless vision, I can’t imagine it becoming a reality.

The struggle for access for all is far from over—and right now it’s very hard to imagine fighting on without Alan’s presence. But that’s the least we must do to honor his incredible spirit and unflagging commitment to win victories that matter for the health of millions of people around the world.

Asia Russell is Health GAP’s director of International AIDS Policy.

To honor Alan’s memory, donations can be made to the Alan Berkman Fund at Health GAP.

Waiting Game

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 12:20:01

Despite HIV-positive Canadian citizens being barred from traveling to a recent Washington, D.C. conference on AIDS and housing, the U.S. continues to drag its feet regarding the repeal of the travel and immigration ban on people living with HIV. Lifting the ban will probably take six to nine months, according to the timeline the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) shared with AIDS advocates at a meeting last Friday.

After up to 60 HIV-positive Canadians were banned from attending the North American Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit IV, White House Office of National AIDS Policy Director Jeffrey Crowley and representatives from the OMB and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) met with Canadian and American advocates to brief them on the status of the travel ban.

Health and Human Services submitted a rule change on April 10 to the OMB that would lift the ban. That rule change should be available for public comment by the first week of July. After a 60-day comment period, the CDC can take as much time as it wants to respond to comments and draft a final rule. This process can take several months. Then the OMB will have 90 days to review the process. If CDC has a fast turnaround (which is unlikely), December would be the earliest that a new regulation would be in place.

The Obama administration has refused to issue an executive order lifting the ban, though OMB representatives said at last week’s meeting that they view lifting the ban as one of their top priorities.

“Even recognizing the statutory requirements for review and public comment periods, OMB sees [the process] moving quickly, whereas we see it moving too slowly,” said Joe Amon, Human Rights Watch’s director of Health and Human Rights Division, who attended the OMB meeting.

While the 1993 Congressional law banning HIV-positive travelers and immigrants from entering the U.S. was repealed last year, HHS has not discontinued a separate similar policy put into place in 1987, so the ban is effectively still in place. At the OMB meeting, advocates pushed for a waiver process that doesn’t require disclosure of one’s HIV-status until the travel ban is repealed. The OMB made clear to participants that they were currently focused on lifting the ban permanently, and didn’t view the temporary fix as a solution.

“This delay is completely unexcusable,” said Housing Works President and CEO Charles King, who attended the meeting. “If the Obama administration wanted to fast-track this, they could issue an executive order today.”

AIDSApalooza 2012 in Washington, D.C.?

In the mean time, immigrations and conferences involving foreigners living with HIV must be delayed or postponed. In the wake of the Canadian disaster, the International AIDS Society issued a press release announcing its hope of holding the International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C. in 2012. In order to plan the conference, the IAS needs a commitment for the ban to be lifted by the end of 2009.

“AIDS 2012 will bring together an estimated 30,000 participants from around the world to address one of the most critical health and development challenges of our generation, highlight the latest results of HIV-related research and foster new streams of collaboration to this global effort,” said IAS President Dr Julio Montaner. “Twenty-five years after the discovery of HIV, the world is finally making progress on rolling back the terrible toll of the global AIDS pandemic. It is time for the U. S. to end the discriminatory ban on entry of foreigners living with HIV.”

On August 16, an action is planned at the Canadian border in Vancouver and Toronto denouncing the travel ban.

The U.S. is among only 14 countries in the world that still ban foreigners from visiting and migrating specifically on the basis of an HIV-positive status. The others are Brunei, Egypt, Iraq, Yemen, Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Singapore, Sudan, South Korea, Tunisia, Turks & Caicos Islands and the United Arab Emirates.

Restoring Momentum

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:17:00

As Mayor Bloomberg and City Council engage in negotiations over a $59.4 billion proposed budget that would go into effect on July 1, the fate of critical services for low-income New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS hangs in the balance. Part of the Mayor’s proposed budget includes a cut of 50 percent ($491,000) to HIV nutrition services funded through the NYC Human Resources Administration / HASA (HIV/AIDS Services Administration).

The nutrition program cut is targeted exclusively at the Momentum Project, an affiliate of Village Care of New York. The loss of these funds, for which there is no alternative source of revenue, represents a cut of nearly 16 percent of Momentum’s overall budget. If enacted, it would have serious repercussions on the ability of our program to continue functioning at its current level.

We provide congregate meals and pantry service to the hardest-to-reach individuals with HIV/AIDS in a non-judgmental and supportive environment in nine communities in four boroughs. Momentum has a comprehensive team of nurses, nutritionists, social workers, chaplains and other specialists who engage more than 3,000 low-income individuals with HIV/AIDS every year during meals, and educate, counsel and link them to primary health care, mental health and substance abuse treatment, housing and other essential services.

We work with people when they are in crisis; that is, when they are in seriously failing health, are poorly nourished or need to get better quickly but simply don’t know how. Sixty-four percent of Momentum clients have an AIDS diagnosis; 87 percent have incomes of under $10,000; 90 percent are persons of color, and one-third of all clients are homeless or unstably housed.

It is inconceivable that the Mayor would chose to balance the budget by cutting services for the most vulnerable New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS. The City Council must restore this cut.

We need you to call your City Council member, Speaker Quinn and the Mayor today and say:

“Hello, my name is _________. I am calling to ask you to stop the Mayor’s proposed cut of $491,000 in the fiscal year 2010 budget to HIV nutrition services. Thousands of New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS rely on food and nutrition services provided through agencies such as the Momentum Project. Please don’t let this cut happen!”

If you have ever received food and nutrition services through an AIDS organization, tell them about your experience and how critical this program was to keep you fed.

Find out who your City Council member is and how to reach them.

Contact Speaker Quinn’s office at (212) 788-6897.

Call the Mayor at 311.

Matt Lesieur is the director of public policy for Village Care. He can be reached at matthewl@vcny.org

Action Alert: Senate Must Vote on Transgender Equality Bill!

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 10:50:00

The New York State Senate has put on quite a show this week, but Housing Works is asking you not to lose sight of important legislation that still has a chance to pass, despite all of the scheming in Albany: The Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act, or GENDA (A.5710./S. 2406), would protect all New Yorkers from discrimination on the basis of gender identity and expression, an especially important issue for the transgender community, which is disproportionately affected by HIV.

GENDA has already passed in the Assembly and the word in Albany is that there may be enough votes in the Senate to pass it as well (and who knows where one of GENDA’s main champions, Sen. Tom Duane, will end up?).

TODAY, we need you to call Senator Pedro Espada and Majority Leader Dean Skelos (pictured) and urge them to bring GENDA to a vote before the end of this year’s legislative session.

To reach Sen. Espada, call: (518) 455-3395
To reach Sen. Skelos, call: (518) 455-3171

Here is a script you can follow! : “HI, my name is __________ . I am calling to strongly urge Senator Espada (or Majority Leader Skelos) to bring a very important piece of legislation to a vote this week: GENDA S2406. For far too long the civil rights of transgender New Yorkers have been ignored. We hope that the recent changes in Senate leadership and calls for reform will extend to transgender New Yorkers seeking equality and justice in their daily lives. Please show your solidarity with the LGBT community and bring this bill to a vote on the floor before this year’s session ends.”

Thank you for your support of Housing Works’ GENDA lobbying efforts! Interested in GENDA? Read more.

The Science Behind Housing

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 06:27:01

Two groundbreaking studies were presented at the North American Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit IV this week in Washington, D.C. A San Francisco Department of Health study showed that stable supportive housing reduced the risk of death among people with AIDS by 80 percent. And final data from the trailblazing Chicago Housing Health Partnership Study study showed people who received supportive housing were almost twice as likely to have an undetectable viral load as those in usual care.

More than 300 researchers, service providers, government officials and people living with HIV from as far away as Haiti and Uganda gathered for the Summit, which is sponsored by the National AIDS Housing Coalition (NAHC) and the Ontario HIV Treatment Network.

In his presentation, Josh Bamberger of the San Francisco Department of Health showed that even a three year old can understand the benefits of housing for people living with AIDS. “Housing is good,” Bamberger said, quoting his own three-year old child. Bamberger’s study, “Impact of housing on the survival of persons with AIDS” examined the health outcomes of people enrolled in San Francisco’s Direct Access to Housing (DAH), which has provided supportive housing for homeless people with chronic medical conditions since 1999, versus those who did not enroll and were homeless.

There were 80 percent less deaths among those enrolled in DAH, which offered intensive case management with a case manager-to-client ratio of 15 to 1.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to see housing’s stark effect on death outcomes,” said Ginny Shubert, a prominent housing researcher with Shubert Botein Associates.

Final data

Results from the Chicago Housing Health Partnership Study (CHHP), the first randomized study showing the impact of health outcomes on people with chronic illnesses, were featured in the Wall Street Journal last year, but the May 2009 issue the Journal of the American Medical Association released CHHP research specifically highlighting the health outcomes of people living with AIDS and final data was presented this week at the Summit.

CHHP showed that after 18 months of being stably housed in supportive housing, 40 percent of participants had an undetectable viral load. Only 21 percent of homeless participants had an undetectable viral load.

Another interesting finding in the CHHP study was the use of nursing homes by the unstably housed people. While the CHHP study didn’t originally track nursing home use, after noticing a pattern, over the course of nine months, this usage was tracked. Unstably housed people spent a total of 4,000 more days in the nursing home than their housed cohorts—costing $2 million.

“Those are expensive, costly days,” said Laura Sadowski, one of the researchers.

Prevention works

Other prominent studies highlighted the need for housing to prevent HIV, as well as the impact of violence among women impacting stable housing. Some highlights:

A Housing and Health study (H & H) showed the cost-effectiveness of housing is dollar amounts—proviing that housing is a cost-effective intervention for improving health, similar to dialysis and mammograms

A Canadian study of HIV-positive women showed stable housing among women at high risk of HIV could allow them to escape violence situations and improve treatment outcomes.

In a study of street involved youth, unstable housing increased the number of sex partners among the youth.

Crowley says

The conference’s featured speaker on Thursday was Office of National AIDS Policy Director Jeff Crowley. Introducing Crowley, Housing Works President and CEO Charles King said that Crowley was a friend of people with AIDS, but “friends speak truth to friends.”

King then criticized the Obama administration for not doing enough to fight AIDS. In addition to not lifting the HIV travel and immigration ban, there is the matter of the syringe exchange funding ban still in place, as well as flat-funding for HOPWA. “I don’t believe four months is a whole lot of time, but we’ve seen when the President wants to make something happen, such as the bank bailout, he’ll make it happen,” King said.

Crowley defended the Obama administration, stating that the President “has a lot on his plate” and “it’s not that anyone sits back and says that AIDS is a low priority.”

Regarding HOPWA’s flat funding, Crowley said, “I was disappointed with HOPWA [but] this is a tight budget environment and we should be realistic about what’s do-able.”

Bailey House President and CEO Gina Quattrochi said that AIDS housing providers have had to “beg, borrow and steal” for funding, and that money needs to be allocated for tracking and researching the most effective programs. “Obama is for data-driven programs, but we don’t have the resources to make that happen,” Quattrochi said.

Crowley pressed AIDS advocates to speak with a unified voice and develop top priorities for a National AIDS Strategy, but also said that he would be traveling the country to hear grassroots opinions about what is needed.

He also said that advocates should continue to push the Obama administration. “Outside pressure can be helpful,” Crowley said. “Sometimes you’ll push the President more than he wants, but he values your input.”

Successive questioners pushed Crowley to be more proactive about including housing in U.S. AIDS policy. Quattrochi pointed out that the press release Crowley brought to the conference didn’t mention housing. “All we’ve experienced is the loss of Ryan White funding,” she said. “We need to think about housing in HIV policy.”

Ban Thy Neighbor

Fri, 05 Jun 2009 05:25:01

The North American Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit’s cross-border collaboration hit an outrageous bureaucratic snag this week when 60 Canadian participants were effectively barred from attending the conference. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) failed to grant a waiver exempting attendees from the U.S.’s embarrassing HIV travel and immigration ban.

Most members of the delegation chose to ignore the ban and came to the Summit anyway. Some did skip the conference over worries of getting detained at the border.

While the 1993 Congressional law banning HIV-positive travelers and immigrants from entering the U.S. was repealed last year, HHS has not discontinued a separate policy put into place in 1987 that effectively renders the Congressional repeal meaningless. Advocates are hopeful the policy will be repealed in the coming months.

Speaking at the Summit on Thursday, Office of National AIDS Policy Director Jeffrey Crowley said that President Obama had asked HHS to get rid of the travel ban and that the Office of Management and Budget was currently evaluating an HHS proposal to do so.

“I am truly sorry for how the issue was resolved,” Crowley said during his keynote at the Summit Thursday.

One Vancouver resident who chose to attend the meeting despite the ban felt that the U.S. needed to move with more urgency. “I respect this administration but someone has dropped the ball and that pisses me off. We have to solve problems in the Middle East,” said the man, in reference to Obama’s trip to Egypt this week. “But we have problems here, too.” The man, who works at a Vancouver AIDS group, said that he travels with 11 medications and could easily have been turned back at the border should a customs official have decided to open his bags.

The research summit was somewhat diminished by the loss of a number of members of the Canadian delegation.“Some of these people are on the front lines and wanted to learn best practices, and other conference participants are missing learning about their experiences,” said Ontario HIV Treatment Network Executive Director Sean Rourke.

Don’t blame Canada, blame the U.S.

In March, HHS officials indicated that granting a “designated event HIV waiver” for the Housing Summit was underway. Such waivers are designed to allow people living with HIV to attend conferences in the U.S. and other conference participants received such waivers, including a participant from Haiti. Most of the 60 participants were part of the delegation from the Ontario HIV Treatment Network (OHTN), a cosponsor of the conference.

But on Friday, May 22, 11 days before the summit start date, the Ottawa Embassy informed the OHTN that each of the people in its delegation to the Washington, D.C. AIDS Housing Summit would have to comply with a humiliating, expensive and time-consuming visa process.

Last Sunday, the White House told conference organizers that the Department of Homeland Security issued a blanket waiver authorization allowing travelers to avoid a consular visit and obtain waivers at the point of entry. They still needed to disclose their HIV positive status on a form, and pay a fee of about $545.

Individuals could also opt to visit the consulate and pay a $131 fee; sign an agreement not to extend the visit for any reason; complete an intrusive and humiliating health form, and pledge to possessing adequate health coverage—something many U.S. citizens living with HIV/AIDS are still denied.

Crowley told conference organizers that “as much as I’d like to” waive the fees, federal law specifically prohibits it.

For Jay Koornstra, a HIV-positive man who lives in Ottawa, this was not an option. “I’d just as soon go to the U.S. government and share my HIV-status. Then I would put a tattoo reading ‘HIV-positive’ on my forehead,” Koornstra said.

American shame

The Housing conference incident served as a powerful remidner that the travel and immigration ban is still very much on the books and enforced despite the Bush administration’s anemic attempts to address it.

While the Bush administration indicated to advocates that it wanted to lift the ban, it didn’t get its act together before leaving office.

“The timing in the change of administrations was unfortunate,” said Immigration Equality Legal Director Victoria Neillson.

And the Obama administration got a slow start with HHS, with Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ confirmation just last month. At the hearing Sen. John Kerry, who introduced the legislation that lifted the Congressional ban, asked about the regulation, saying “When you are confirmed would you make this issue a priority and follow-up on the delay in promulgating a regulation? I hope that we can work together to finally end this discriminatory ban and I look forward to the response from the Administration.”

Sebelius responded, “If I am confirmed as Secretary, I will work to repeal this ban as quickly as possible to comply with the law.”

The proposed regulation was brought to the Office of Management and Budget, and advocates working on the issue expect a regulation to be issued for public comment shortly.

“We’re all hopeful it will be coming in the next month,” said Neillson. “We continue to be hopeful that the regulation will come out imminently. There are people who are suffering to be with their families.”

After the regulation is issued, people will have 60 days to comment, and AIDS advocates will come out in full force in support of the new regulation.

Canadian Martin Rooney is leading a campaign to denounce the ban. After traveling back and forth across the border for years, in 2007, Rooney was denied entry because he was HIV-positive. “I felt violated that day,” Rooney said. He is working to fight the ban, starting a facebook group calling on Obama to lift the ban that now has more than 1,100 members. He is organizing a rally in Vancouver on August 16—without the help of the AIDS organizations in the area. “They have HIV-positive board members who go across the border without problems and don’t want to be called out,” Rooney said. “But I think if there’s injustice for one HIV-positive person, we all suffer.”

In the mean time…

The exclusion of the Canadians from the conference proved an unfortunate, but teachable, moment for the rest of the conference participants. The conference room was filled with signs reading “President Obama Must Live the Travel Ban!” On Wednesday Johns Hopkins professor Chris Beyrer spoke about the travel ban, and other immigration and refugee issues that affect people living with HIV/AIDS.

A group of Canadian and American summit participants will be meeting with Crowley and officials from OMB later today to discuss the travel ban.