HOUSING is Health Care...

Campaign to End AIDS (C2EA) – Established 2005

 

FOUR FRONT BURNER ISSUES: A Quick Overview

1.                  Reauthorize and fully fund the Ryan White CARE Act.

2.                  Keep Medicaid strong for people with HIV/AIDS and all other beneficiaries.

3.                  Strengthen the global fight against AIDS by fully funding the Global Fund and backing 100% debt cancellation.

4.                  Restore and revive effective HIV Prevention worldwide based on the best science.

HOUSING

PROBLEMS:

When it comes to HIV/AIDS, housing is Health Care, and housing is HIV Prevention. People with HIV and AIDS can't reliably manage or improve their own health care if they're homeless or in unstable housing. And people who are homeless are more likely to engage in high-risk behaviors, including sex-for-shelter or sex-for-money transactions. Medically appropriate and stable housing for all people living with HIV/AIDS will give other health care interventions a chance to work.

Poverty, domestic abuse, and rape contribute to women becoming homeless. HIV-positive women who lack safe and secure housing are less able to make and keep health care appointments and to follow difficult medication regimens and are at increased risk for infection.

And America's veterans are at particularly high risk for homelessness and HIV infection, adding to our moral responsibility to ensure funding and policies that end the twin crises of homelessness and AIDS.

 

SOLUTIONS:

Increase resources for AIDS housing

•                     Stop the cuts and increase funding for the “Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) program at HUD; fully fund McKinney-Vento, Housing Choice Vouchers and other HUD housing programs, protect and extend Section 8 subsidies

•                     Establish a National Housing Trust Fund, a dedicated source of funding to produce, rehabilitate or preserve 1.5 million units of housing affordable to low-income people over the next 10 years

•                     Increase incentives for state and local funding for AIDS housing and operating subsidies

 

Increase services for people who experience long-term or “chronic” homelessness

•                     Authorize and fund a new program to link those experiencing chronic homelessness with permanent housing and mainstream services that will help to stabilize their lives and advance their recovery and move to self-sufficiency, with specific funds for people with HIV/AIDS

•                     Match funding from states and local governments, fund multi-year renewable grants based on sound performance criteria; employ a simple application process compatible with existing housing resources; promote coordination between and among federal agencies, state agencies and local private and public organizations

 

Ensure housing and services for those returning from incarceration

•                     Fund a range of comprehensive services to assist persons returning from jails and prisons to communities nationwide, including expanding Department of Justice grant programs

•                     Develop expanded safe housing for women with low incomes and women who are threatened with domestic or sexual abuse

 

BENEFITS & OUTCOMES

•                     Better health care for people living with HIV/AIDS and reduced expenses on homeless shelters, emergency housing, and extraordinary medical costs

•                     Less HIV infections due to improved HIV prevention among formerly homeless people

•                     Stronger communities and more stable families

•                     Improved health and reduced homelessness for women

•                     Reduced HIV infections and reduced public costs for HIV-related health care

•                     Living conditions for women that improve health outcomes