The Emerging AIDS Housing Crisis Contact: John Merz, Executive Director CT AIDS Residence Coalition (860) 231-8212 
The Hartford and New Haven-Meriden Eligible Metropolitan Statistical Areas (EMSA) have been hit with substantial cuts. Hartford’s funds are being cut by 40% and New Haven-Meriden’s by 52%. These are drastic cuts, which will certainly have a damaging affect not only on people currently residing in AIDS housing programs in those EMSAs but also on the entire state of Connecticut.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) announced the $1.1 cut in Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS (HOPWA) funding allocations for federal fiscal year (FFY) 2000 during January.
The AIDS crisis is still with us.
Over the years, the population of people with AIDS has changed. For example, the majority of people living with AIDS who come to Connecticut’s AIDS housing programs are multiply diagnosed with HIV/AIDS, substance use and mental health histories. Many also have long histories of homelessness, incarceration, and institutionalization, and are the poorest of the poor. These personal barriers combined with the lack of or access to extensive time in treatment programs and the lack of other affordable, supportive housing means that existing supportive AIDS housing programs around the state bear the burden of trying to meet their complex needs.
Along with shifts in who has AIDS, the new medications have not ended the AIDS crisis; they have simply changed it.
Because there are more people living with AIDS and a steady increase in the number of people with HIV, it means that the demand for AIDS services and supportive housing for people with HIV/AIDS and their families is also on the rise. In 1999, AIDS housing programs received 1,312 requests for housing and 1,063 people were denied admission primarily due to a lack of space.
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With the $1.1 million cut, programs will be forced to discontinue nearly 100 rent subsidies affecting over 300 individuals and families. |
Group residences will have to eliminate staff positions and as a consequence, scale down the level or availability of services, deny admission to people with a high level of need, or simply admit fewer people to their programs. The loss of housing and services will place an undue burden on the |
emergency shelter system, the health care system (such as emergency rooms) and other AIDS services. It will force hospitals and nursing homes to keep people longer than medically necessary at a much higher cost to the state, due to a lack of appropriate places for discharge. This burden on already overtaxed systems and services will be completely unmanageable due to the sheer numbers of those in need and the complex nature of their needs.
HOPWA funds are disbursed using a complex formula that includes both a base dollar amount and a bonus. Both components are based on the number of newly reported AIDS cases in each EMSA. The reason for the cuts in Hartford and New Haven is due to a percentage drop in the newly reported AIDS cases for those areas during the past fiscal year and the subsequent loss of the bonus due to that drop.
The bonus component of the formula is the most problematic.
In FFY 2000, approximately 20 - 24 of the EMSAs qualify for this bonus. In some cases, an area may qualify and be just over the national rate in one year, but not qualify in a succeeding year, when their rate is just below the average. This could result in a substantial part of their award being lost in that subsequent year. That is what happened in Connecticut. HUD recommended that this part of the formula be dropped in their October 1999 recommendations to Congress on updating the formula, but these decisions have not yet been discussed by Congress.
The CT AIDS Residence Coalition is comprised of 28 member organizations; 27 of which provide supportive housing to people with HIV/AIDS. The housing offered ranges from independent scattered site apartments - with a rent subsidy and case management - to shelters, group residences, transitional housing programs, hospice and a skilled nursing facility. Because all of the 28 AIDS housing programs are members of CARC, there is a built-in mechanism for ongoing collaboration and consultation. In addition, CARC works closely with the Connecticut Departments of Social Services, Public Health, and Mental Health and Addiction Services. CARC has a seat on the statewide Ryan White Title II Consortium.
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