Important note: Information in this article was accurate in 2006. The state of the art may have changed since the publication date.
The New York Times - October 5, 2006
Sewell Chan
The change, which city officials disclosed yesterday at a meeting with advocacy groups, means that most of the people in the program will be paying more than half their income - which comes entirely from federal assistance - toward rent.
"I am very concerned," said Verna Eggleston, the commissioner of the city's Human Resources Administration, who recalled how hard it was to find housing for poor people with AIDS in the early years of the epidemic, in the 1980's.
The roughly 2,200 people who will be affected by the increase make up about one-third of those who receive housing services through the H.I.V./AIDS Services Administration, part of Ms. Eggleston's agency.
Nearly all of the 2,200 adults receive either Supplemental Security Income or Social Security Disability Insurance, federal programs that help disabled people. Most of them used to be homeless and now live in buildings that offer medical services.
Until now, the adults have been paying 30 percent of their income in rent. The state's Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance has directed the city to change that formula. Now, the adults will be allowed to keep only $330 of their monthly income for food and other personal items, with the rest going for rent.
In an example provided by the city, a participant in the program who gets $690 a month in Supplemental Security Income will now have to pay $360 (the income minus the $330) in rent, compared with $207 under the current formula.
The adults in the program will get a 10-day notice before the changes are put in effect by Nov. 1.
A March 2004 audit by the state office found that the H.I.V./AIDS agency was paying too much rent and not making the people in the program contribute enough. The state started to withhold the reimbursements it usually gives the city to make up for its rent subsidies because the state said that the city needed to charge more. Since the audit, the withheld rent subsidies have accumulated to more than $150 million; to get that money released, the city agency had to agree to the policy change.
Terri E. Smith-Caronia, a policy official at Housing Works, which helps people with AIDS find housing, health care and other services, said, "At a time when federal AIDS money is decreasing, this policy change is like a double whammy."
Patrick J. McGovern, executive director of the Harlem United Community AIDS Center, said of the change: "It assumes that ill and disabled people should be spending more than 50 percent of their income on housing. They will have to concentrate more on their daily survival needs than on getting and staying well."
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