AIDS Homeless Crisis Rages/LA Mayor's Program Hoards $13 Million
Tom Boland (wgcp@earthlink.net)
Mon, 19 Oct 1998 03:28:48 -0400
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/981011/ca_aids_vi_1.html
Sunday October 11, 12:15 pm Eastern Time
Company Press Release
SOURCE: AIDS Healthcare Foundation
AS AIDS HOMELESS CRISIS RAGES IN L.A.,
MAYOR'S PROGRAM HOARDS $13 MILLION,
SAYS AIDS HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION
AIDS Housing VIGIL Getty House, Hancock Park
Oct 11-12th
City Report Shows Two-thirds with AIDS Surveyed Experience Homelessness
while Millions Go Unspent: Vigil at Empty Mayoral Mansion Complete with the
set up of a Furnished Bedroom Outdoors -- Highlights Issue
LOS ANGELES, Oct. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- While L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan's
Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS (HOPWA) program sits on over $13
million dollars 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.
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.''
The AIDS housing vigil schedule will be:
Vigil Schedule:
Sunday, Oct 11th 10 am Vigil Opens, activists Set up a Bedroom
outside the Getty House, activists give remarks
6 pm Dinner
11 pm Bedtime
Monday, Oct 12th 8:30 am Breakfast -- Mayor Riordan Invited to dine and
meet with group to discuss the issue
4-8 pm Media invited to consider live shots as
Vigil concludes (packing up Bedroom, etc)
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
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