For Volunteer Appreciation week, we want to share how grateful we are to our wonderful volunteers. Whether a volunteer in our office, at our events, or on our Panel, you make a difference in the lives of those living with HIV/AIDS. Thank you.
ALRP Executive Director Bill Hirsh appeared on a panel for UCSF Public Psychiatry Fellows organized by Jim Dilley, Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at UCSF and Co-Director of UCSF Alliance Health Project. The fellows are engaged in serving vulnerable populations in San Francisco and exploring how organizational structure builds leadership in the community. Bill discussed his work serving people living with disabilities and shared some of the successes and challenges of leading a nonprofit organization for over twenty years.
ALRP seeks a Staff Attorney to join our growing HIV/AIDS Housing Advocacy Project. The Staff Attorney will provide direct services to people living with HIV/AIDS in a variety of legal issues related to housing, with a primary focus on eviction defense litigation. This is an exciting opportunity to be a part of San Francisco’s groundbreaking “right-to-counsel” initiative, which guarantees that every tenant facing eviction has access to full-scope legal representation. We are looking for a highly-motivated individual interested in working in a cooperative, flexible office, committed to social justice. Salary: $75,000. Excellent benefits. People of color, women, those with Spanish language skills, and those with disabilities, including HIV, encouraged to apply. Position open until filled.
San Francisco officials allocated $2.6 million for local HIV programs over the next two years in the fiscal budget adopted by the Board of Supervisors Tuesday that advocates had been seeking. The funding includes money to address the mental health and housing needs of long-term HIV survivors.
Also on July 27 the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced $117 million in funding for states and local health departments as part of the second major round of investment in the federal Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. (EHE) initiative. San Francisco will receive $3.09 million of the funds.
“That funding will certainly help to shore up the system of care for people living with, and at risk for, HIV,” said AIDS Legal Referral Panel Executive Director Bill Hirsh. “I think the federal government is proposing, at least the Democrats in Congress are proposing, some significant increases in funding to services for people with HIV. I am hopeful this is reflective of prioritizing the needs of these underserved communities.”
Under the EHE initiative San Francisco is receiving $2.29 million; it is also being allocated $800,000 under the CDC’s Scaling Up HIV Prevention Services in STD Clinics funds. It comes as health officials raise concerns about seeing sexually transmitted diseases rise due to COVID-19 restrictions being lifted and people stop self-isolating from others.
“We are committed to making the end of HIV in the U.S. a reality,” stated Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, formerly California’s attorney general. “That is why this initiative, and responding to COVID-19’s impact on the HIV epidemic, is so critical to tackle for the Biden-Harris administration.”
In a statement to the Bay Area Reporter, the San Francisco Department of Public Health said it was “very grateful” to receive the funds from the EHE initiative, which aims to cut new HIV infections in the United States by at least 90% by 2030. The department said it would use the funds particularly for programs aimed at people of color; transgender women; people experiencing homelessness; people who use drugs; and people who have recent histories with or are currently incarcerated.
With the EHE funding, DPH said it “will augment targeted community-based services, create new innovative services, use a harm reduction framework, and eliminate eligibility silos for prevention and care services to turn the curve on HIV/HCV/STIs.”
As for the local funding included in San Francisco’s two-year budget for the fiscal years covering July 1, 2021 through July 1, 2023, programs aimed at addressing the mental health needs of long-term HIV survivors will receive $200,000 in both years. Housing subsidies totaling $750,000 per year will go toward people living with HIV, which average $10,000 a year per person.
Another $350,000 each year is designated toward covering the increase in the cost of doing business faced by HIV service providers that receive city contracts funded by federal grants. It is to mirror the extra money built into the contracts funded by local dollars that agencies are awarded to cover their increased expenses, such as labor costs, that they must budget for each year.
“As costs rise there is a real net loss of services for folks, so we were able to secure a modest cost of doing business increase, a little more than 2%, for Ryan White contracts,” said Hirsh, referring to the federal Health Resources and Services Administration’s Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program.
Hirsh co-chairs the city’s HIV/AIDS Provider Network, known as HAPN, which worked closely with city officials and gay District 8 Supervisor Rafael Mandelman to secure the HIV funding in the city budget. He was especially pleased to see the mental health funds be included.
“I think it is important to remember San Francisco has sustained its commitment to the safety net of services for people living with HIV. It is a partnership between the nonprofit community and the city for many years now,” said Hirsh, noting that this year’s budget negotiations were particularly challenging. “We felt very good that the city was continuing its commitment to addressing the HIV/AIDS epidemic and trying, in some modest way, to respond to the needs of the community, especially around mental health services for long-term survivors and housing subsidies because we know housing is health care for people living with HIV.”
Mandelman told the B.A.R. it was particularly important to fund the mental health programs for long-term HIV survivors who have had to self-isolate at home due to the COVID pandemic and continue to restrict their social interactions due to the more contagious Delta variant now sweeping across California and the Bay Area. The housing funds will also help to avert a crisis among people living with HIV as local and state eviction moratoriums come to an end later this year.
“This has been a really rough year for everyone, but I think particularly for long-term HIV survivors. I think additional investment in mental health and housing subsidies are really important right now,” said Mandelman. “We don’t know exactly what is going to happen when the eviction moratorium comes to an end. The fear is increased homelessness and more people at risk of homelessness. We need to do everything we can to support long-term survivors and their health.”
Contract change postponed
Another victory in this year’s budget talks for HIV service providers was a commitment from the city’s DPH to postpone a change in how it allocates up to $3 million in contracts for HIV prevention services until next summer. The agency wants to shift the funds toward programs focused on marginalized communities disproportionately impacted by HIV that take a more holistic approach and also address STDs and hepatitis.
The change was to have been implemented in early 2020 but was postponed due to the COVID pandemic. While HIV advocates agree in the new direction the department wants to take, they are also concerned it could result in the loss of existing services that providers have offered for nearly a decade depending on how the contracts are awarded.
“We could lose a ton if we are not funded, so much of it is unknown at this point,” said HAPN co-chair Lance Toma, CEO of the San Francisco Community Health Center. “We need to know what the awards are so we can make thoughtful and clear and accurate assessments of what are the services that may be lost and where are the holes in the safety net.”
The health department told the B.A.R. it is “committed to completing the RFP results and we are working to finalize the timeline for the funding announcement as rapidly as possible given ongoing demand for COVID-19 services and staffing shortages due to COVID-19 deployment.”
Advocates hope the postponement in awarding the new contracts will provide them more time to convince city health officials they should be increasing the budget for HIV services rather than simply reallocating the existing funds. Mandelman has been advocating for such an approach.
“I think DPH is a very large department with a lot of funding. I think it can come up with this new approach to build capacity and focus on new ways to reach communities that continue to be disproportionately impacted by HIV,” he said. “I support that. But I don’t want to stop agencies doing the prevention work that has been so successful in getting us to under 200 new infections a year.”
He told the B.A.R. he remains hopeful a solution can be worked out, as “this gives us an additional year to figure out how to do that.”
This story originally appeared in the Bay Area Reporter and can be viewed online here.
Mayor London N. Breed announced the City has published its HIV/AIDS Housing Five-Year Plan. The final plan is the result of four City departments, led by the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD), who have partnered to produce a path forward that ensures people living with HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) receive quality housing services that support the best possible housing outcomes.
The goals of the five-year plan include maintaining current housing and facilities, increasing new housing units, increasing resources for subsidies, expanding access to resources, and improving the efficiency and quality of the housing and service delivery ecosystem. This plan would result in a total increase of the number of rental subsidies dedicated to PLWHA by 30% within the next 5 years, and expansion of the overall number of PLWHA served through MOHCD’s HIV housing service programs by 30%.
“San Francisco has been a national leader in our response to the HIV/AIDS epidemic and in our efforts to get to zero new infections, and we know part of our success in helping people live healthier lives is to ensure they have access to housing,” said Mayor Breed. “This plan is part of our commitment to strengthen housing stability and access for our most vulnerable residents, including those living with HIV/AIDS.”
“Stable housing is vital to the health of San Franciscans living with HIV/AIDS. The expansion of housing options for HIV-positive people proposed in this plan will save lives and move us closer to our Getting to Zero goals of no new HIV infections, no new HIV-related deaths and no HIV-related stigma,” said Supervisor Rafael Mandelman.
San Francisco is home to one of the largest communities of PLWHA in the nation, and it has been proven that providing housing stability to vulnerable communities results in improved health outcomes. The HIV/AIDS Housing Plan details how HIV housing services within San Francisco have evolved over the last few years; describes where services are progressing that improve housing systems, better meeting the needs of PLWHA; and highlights various goals and strategies the City is seeking to achieve and employ in order to improve access to housing services for PLWHA over the next five years.
“The plan gives us the framing and guidance needed to ensure that our office is responsive to the needs of residents living with HIV/AIDS,” said Eric Shaw, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development. “MOHCD will continue to approach this effort in a manner that is resident centered, and in collaboration with city agencies and community partners.”
“The HIV Housing Plan unites Medical Professionals, Community Based Organizations and Housing Partners,” said Dr. Monica Gandhi, Professor of Medicine, UCSF and Medical Director of Ward 86 and Erin Collins, LCSW, Ward 86 at San Francisco General Hospital. “The robust approach maximizes the care, advocacy, and coordination required to reduce stigma, increase prevention, and enhance engagement of ongoing treatment for PLWH.”
The City also recently announced the development teams for nine new 100% affordable housing sites, adding nearly 900 homes to MOHCD’s construction pipeline. Building and developing these new homes is a key pillar of the Mayor’s COVID-19 recovery strategy and will be crucial to revitalizing the City’s economy while addressing the community’s need for new housing. Each of the nine sites will have units available for referrals from the City’s Plus Housing list for low-income residents living with HIV with rents set at no more than 50% AMI ($1,166 for a studio, $1,333 for a one bedroom).
“In order for the City of San Francisco to meet our ambitious goals of Getting To Zero, we need to address the housing crisis for people living with HIV/AIDS,” said Bill Hirsh, Executive Director of the AIDS Legal Referral Panel. “We are pleased that this new award will significantly advance those goals by creating new affordable housing for people living with HIV. Housing is healthcare for people living with HIV.”
“As a pioneer in HIV/AIDS services dating back to the 1980s, Catholic Charities has been a part of and witness to the dramatic transformation of care for those living with HIV/AIDS in our community,” said Jilma L. Meneses, Catholic Charities Chief Executive Officer. “San Francisco’s new HIV/AIDS housing plan reflects the advances in care that now enable individuals to live independently with more freedom and better long-term outcomes.”
HUD’s Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) Program is the Federal funding source for most HIV housing services in San Francisco. HOPWA is transitioning to a formula-based funding model based on incidence of new HIV infection rather than the historical model based on cumulative AIDS cases. Due to San Francisco’s innovative HIV/AIDS healthcare programs that have led to the sustained decrease in the number of new HIV infections, the City will be looking to support ongoing programming by obtaining alternative funding. To view the full HIV/AIDS Housing Five-Year report, click here.
Alvin (“Al”) Baum, a gay man whose dedication and conviction changed the world for the better, has passed away.
Read More »Nine grantees have been selected for funding through the HIV Legal Services Fund. Making the announcement on World AIDS Day is the HIV/AIDS Impact Project (formerly the AIDS Coordinating Committee), which is part of the Health & Human Rights Initiative run jointly by the American Bar Association Center for Human Rights and Civil Rights and Social Justice Section.
The HIV/AIDS Impact Project established the fund after it was named the recipient of a cy pres award to disburse approximately $1.2 million in unclaimed funds from the 2017 settlement agreement in Beckett v. Aetna, a class-action lawsuit in which policyholders taking HIV medications for treatment or prevention alleged privacy infringement by the Aetna insurance company.
The Project issued a request for proposals for grants from the fund of up to $150,000 each to enhance the availability of HIV legal services in underserved U.S. areas.
The grant recipients are:
“The HIV/AIDS Impact Project was honored to have been entrusted by the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to disburse the Beckett v. Aetna cy pres funds to HIV legal services providers in the United States, all of which do tremendous work with minimal resources,” said Margaret Drew, chair of the Project and associate professor of law at the University of Massachusetts. “The HIV Legal Services Fund established by the Project for this purpose received more than two dozen proposals, all of them impressive, and we wrestled mightily to arrive at a final roster of grantees. The ones selected represent regional and other measures of diversity in reaching underserved populations with HIV legal services and policy advocacy.”
ABA President Patricia Lee Refo said: “I’m proud of the hard work of the HIV/AIDS Impact Project in selecting these superb organizations for funding, and I echo Professor Drew’s appreciation to the district court for this important opportunity.” She added, “Since 1987, when the ABA established the AIDS Coordinating Committee (now the Project) to identify, analyze and address legal issues bearing on the HIV/AIDS pandemic, it has been doing vital work to support HIV legal services providers and policy advocates at home and abroad. The HIV Legal Services Fund is but another manifestation of that longstanding commitment.
ALRP Executive Director Bill Hirsh commented: ” This grant will support ALRP”S Panel Attorney Recruitment and Training Program by expanding its capacity to recruit and educate attorneys locally. The funding will also allow us to provide training modules to support legal service programs serving people with HIV in underserved areas throughout the country.
Co-lead class counsel in Beckett v. Aetna are the AIDS Law Project of Pennsylvania; the Legal Action Center; and Berger Montague PC. (Beckett v. Aetna, Inc., No. 2:17-cv-03864-JS (E.D. Pa.))
Please join us in mourning the loss of a true ALRP champion…
Read More »Read why ALRP is worthy of your World AIDS Day & Giving Tuesday gift…
Read More »ALRP is partnering with technology start-up Qase to rethink the way we make referrals to Panel attorneys. Sign up to join the pilot!
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