Letter Delivered to Speaker of the City Council Christine Quinn
September 25, 2007
Speaker Christine C. Quinn
City Hall
New York, New York 10017
We, the undersigned People Living with HIV and AIDS, AIDS service providers, advocates, activists, and concerned constituents, urge you create legislation that would expand the eligibility of benefits received from the City’s HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) -- which includes enhanced rental assistance and increased food and nutrition, and transportation supports -- to low-income individuals who are currently HIV-asymptomatic. This is known as HASA For ALL.
In an effort to keep people as healthy as possible by ameliorating those risk factors that lead towards a dangerous progression to AIDS, we strongly urge to provide vital services and move into medically-appropriate emergency and permanent housing all eligible HIV+ asymptomatic New Yorkers.
Right now, approximately 20,000 NYC residents per year test positive for HIV. Approximately 9,000 of them are low-income and in need of better nutrition and assistance paying their rent in order to keep them from homelessness. Since they are only eligible for standard Public Assistance Benefits, they are not provided with enough money to do what they need to do to stay housed and healthy.
Even worse, because these individuals do not meet HASA's criteria for eligibility – a CD4 count under 200 or 2 AIDS-defining illnesses -- they are forced to wait until their virus progresses to an AIDS diagnosis in order to get help. These folks that are homeless almost always wind up in the shelter system or on the streets.
Our very own NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has found in a recent study that the number 1 killer of women and number 2 killer of men struggling to survive in the DHS shelter system is AIDS. That means that 11% of all homeless HIV positive individuals in the city are being sent to the shelters because they are not yet eligible for HASA benefits. Instead of being quickly streamlined into HASA and getting medically appropriate emergency housing, these folks are dying from AIDS in the shelters!
This problem is exactly the kind of barrier to care that HASA was created eradicate.
NYC can determine eligibility for HASA benefits. And you, Speaker Quinn, could simply decide it is the right thing to do and amend Local Law 49 to allow everyone who tests positive for HIV to be eligible for HASA benefits. It is time that we as a city work towards the elimination of AIDS as a pandemic here in our city, and expanding access to HASA benefits for ALL poor HIV+ New Yorkers is a huge step in that direction.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
(listed in column to right; list in formation)