BUSINESS WIRE; September 3, 1998

Activists Call for Federal Investigation, Adoption of AIDS Housing Bill of Rights

AIDS Healthcare Foundation announced that while Mayor of L.A. Richard Riordan's Housing Opportunities for People With AIDS (HOPWA) program holds up over $13 million in federal funds to house people with AIDS in Los Angeles, a city study reports two-thirds of persons with AIDS surveyed had recently been homeless.

"It's an outrage for anyone with AIDS in Los Angeles to go homeless while millions of federal AIDS housing dollars sit untapped in city coffers," said Michael Weinstein, AIDS Healthcare Foundation president.

"For people with AIDS, homelessness is a medical emergency that leads to lapses in treatment, which can lead to death. The city is creating both a private and public health emergency with its gross mismanagement of this program," Weinstein added.

At a Hancock Park press conference hosted by AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the nation's largest HIV/AIDS medical provider, and attended by AIDS and homeless activists Thursday in front of Getty House, the official -- but uninhabited -- mayoral mansion, Los Angeles activists called for a federal investigation of the city program, which has 130 percent of its annual budget unspent. Activists also called on the city to adopt an AIDS Housing Bill of Rights.

"Maybe the mayor can lend us this beautiful empty house," said Carlos Faisan, a person with AIDS and AIDS testing counselor. "I was homeless because of the city's red tape. In speaking out today, I hope to encourage the mayor to show compassion and help all of us with AIDS have homes so we can take our medicine and live with hope and dignity. Homes -- and treatment -- equal life."

According to findings from the city's own AIDS housing survey, nearly two-thirds (65 percent) of PWAs in the survey report they were homeless at least two times during the past three years. The report, titled "Preliminary Findings on the Housing Study for Persons Living with HIV/AIDS in the City and County of Los Angeles," was prepared for the city of Los Angeles by Shelter Partnership Inc.

Despite the fact that, according to the city controller's report, the city pays itself $1 million a year to administer the program -- out of the approximately $10 million allocated annually by the federal government to provide housing for people with AIDS in Los Angeles -- the report by the city controller's office shows that L.A.'s HOPWA office has failed to do its job and that 13 million "unspent and unencumbered" federal dollars have not been put to work in Los Angeles as mandated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

If not used as mandated, federal regulations stipulate that the money eventually be returned to the federal government. The city survey, the first comprehensive study on housing for PWAs in Los Angeles, consisted of 785 client interviews -- interviews with PWAs who had been assisted by the program in some manner and were thus already in the system (a fact that more likely should have slanted the statistics in favor of the housing program).

AHF activists consider that the survey results present a stinging indictment of the HOPWA AIDS housing program's shortcomings.

Among the statistics:

-- Two-thirds (510 people) of the PWAs interviewed reported being homeless in the previous three years (an average of two times for each person).

-- 45 percent (233 people) of these were currently homeless (almost one-third of the total 785 people surveyed).

-- 68 percent of all those surveyed were people of color, mirroring an increase in AIDS among minorities.

At the conference, activists called for implementation of an emergency 3-point plan to fix this crisis in AIDS homelessness.

Highlights of the plan include:

-- Calling for a federal investigation of the local mismanagement of 13 million federal AIDS housing dollars.

-- Freeing this funding from the jurisdiction of the City Housing Dept. so that it will be used for its federally mandated purpose of housing people with AIDS.

-- Calling for immediate implementation of the "AIDS Housing Bill of Rights."

"We call on Mayor Riordan to immediately review this critical program and put these wasted dollars to work," said AHF's Weinstein. "These federal dollars were sent to L.A. not only to ensure the health and safety of L.A.'s homeless PWAs, but to protect the public health of all Angelenos."

AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the nation's largest HIV/AIDS medical provider, serves more than 3,200 Greater Los Angeles patients regardless of their ability to pay at four out-patient health-care centers, two residential facilities, the WomensCare Center; through Positive Healthcare (the first AIDS-specific managed care program in the nation), through AHF's Research Division (offering clients the opportunity to participate in state-of-the-art clinical research trials), through AHF's Treatment=Life Division featuring the WEHO Lounge, the nation's first coffeehouse/HIV testing and information center, and through outreach and HIV testing offered at several of AHF's 14 fundraising Out of the Closet thrift stores located throughout Southern California.

NOTE TO EDITORS: For media inquiries, contact AHF's Ged Kenslea, 323/860-5225.

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CONTACT: AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Los Angeles Ged Kenslea, 323/860-5225, pager: 323/209-8123 Cesar Portillo, 323/860-5202

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