| Releases & Statements
Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum expressed
outrage with the City’s Department of Health and Mental
Hygiene (DOHMH) for deliberately excluding AIDS housing advocates
from a meeting on how best to allocate a shrinking amount of funding
for AIDS housing. Gotbaum was joined by AIDS Housing providers
and advocates at a news conference on the steps of City Hall.
“I am outraged
that the Health Department is shutting its doors on those advocates
who best understand HIV/AIDS housing needs,” Gotbaum said.
The advocates were part of a panel
known as Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS (HOPWA) Advisory
Committee (HAC), which was disbanded in June 2004. The HAC, established
in 1992, included some of the City’s most knowledgeable
AIDS housing advocates, housing providers, and homeless persons
living with HIV/AIDS. The HAC served as the primary mechanism
for ensuring community input into the City’s use of federal
funds distributed by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development.
Since the HAC last met, the City’s
HOPWA funding has been cut by $9.75 million and a City report,
released under pressure from Gotbaum's office, has shown that
the AIDS housing crisis is growing.
“I am deeply troubled that consumers and providers of AIDS
housing and related services are being shut out of discussions
regarding the distribution of very limited HOPWA dollars. Now
more than ever, as the City considers how to deal with this significant
reduction in funds, community input is critical. I believe the
exclusion of former HAC members is a misguided attempt to stifle
criticism and silence the voices of the City’s most knowledgeable
AIDS housing advocates,” Gotbaum said.
"Those of us who have worked
in the HIV/AIDS field for over a decade are deeply troubled by
the City's disbanding of the HIV/AIDS housing planning group,
which was comprised of people living with HIV/AIDS, advocates,
and providers, who worked with two mayoral administrations to
address homelessness among low-income New Yorkers living with
HIV/AIDS. We question the City's actions particularly in light
of NYC's recent loss of 17% of its federal HIV/AIDS housing funds.
Any plan to end chronic homelessness in NYC or implement a comprehensive
HIV prevention strategy must include a solid plan to end HIV/AIDS
homelessness. That may not be accomplished without community input
and buy-in,” said Regina R. Quattrochi, Chief Executive
Officer of Bailey House, a provider of AIDS Housing.
“Good planning includes stakeholders--people
who need AIDS housing, who build AIDS housing, who know the issues
inside and out. Having a meeting with your buddies is old-fashioned
political cronyism. If the City's Department of Health was serious
about trying to end the dual epidemics of AIDS and homelessness,
it would have AIDS housing activists at the table," said
Amos Hough, New York City AIDS Housing Network board member and
a formerly homeless person living with HIV/AIDS.
Gotbaum has repeatedly written to
DOHMH Commissioner Thomas Frieden demanding that the HAC be reconvened.
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