PRNnewswire - Sunday October 11, 1998

In response, AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), the nation's largest HIV/AIDS medical provider, today (Sunday, October 11) hosts an AIDS housing vigil complete with the setting up of a furnished bedroom outdoorswith AIDS and homeless activists, starting at 10:00 a.m. this morning and continuing through Monday, October 12th in front of Getty House, the official but uninhabited mayoral mansion to highlight this issue. Los Angeles activists will call for a federal investigation of the city program, which has 130% of its annual budget unspent, and also call on the city to adopt an AIDS Housing Bill of Rights.

"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."

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 the city pays itself one million dollars a year to administer the program out of the approximately ten (10) million dollars allocated annually by the federal government to provide housing for people with AIDS in Los Angeles a 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). Remarkably, 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 vigil, activists will call for implementation of an emergency 3- point plan to fix this crisis in AIDS homelessness in Los Angeles. 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'

(see full document attached).

"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 over 3,200 Greater Los Angeles patients regardless of their ability to pay at 4 out-patient health care centers, 2 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 coffee house/HIV testing and information center, and through outreach and HIV testing offered at several of AHF's fourteen fund-raising Out of the Closet thrift stores located throughout Southern California.

For media inquiries, contact AHF's Ged Kenslea, 323.860.5225.

SOURCE: AIDS Healthcare Foundation
981011
PR981006

Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 1998. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.

AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All information contained on this website, including information relating to health conditions, products, and treatments, is for informational purposes only. It is often presented in summary or aggregate form. It is not meant to be a substitute for the advice provided by your own physician or other medical professionals. Always discuss treatment options with a doctor who specializes in treating HIV.

Copyright ©1980, 1998. AEGiS. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content. .