February 29, 2008
SLEET AND SNOW WON'T KEEP US AWAY
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HASA for All takes Albany |
On Tuesday, Judy G. had the chance to tell Assemblyman Darryl Towns what was on her mind: The fear that she might have to pay more than 30 percent of her income toward her rent. "I wouldn't be able to survive," she said. "We have to choose between feeding ourselves and keeping a roof over our heads." Two dozen folks from Housing Works, Gay Men's Health Crisis and Harlem United and other groups crowded around a conference table in Towns office nodded in agreement. Towns replied, "The state has not done enough about housing for anybody. In fact, we've done a horrible job. But we have a new governor now. Pataki didn't care."
Despite the sleet and snow dripping from their coats, hundreds of people with HIV/AIDS like Judy G. braved the cold and trudged around Albany to meet with Senators and Assembly members for the AIDS Awareness Lobby Day, organized by the New York AIDS Coalition. Elevators in the Legislative Office Building were overflowing as consumers went door-to-door reminding legislators to address their concerns this session.
Chief among the issues the Albany daytrippers raised were preserving the choices of people living with HIV/AIDS in Medicaid; preserving HIV confidentiality and written informed consent; improving the quality of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C (HCV) health care treatment in correctional facilities; income rules for persons living with HIV and AIDS in housing programs including capping rent for low-income New Yorkers with HIV/AIDS at 30 percent of income; HIV/AIDS awareness license plates to support transportation of PWAs; support of medical marijuana, and passage of the Healthy Teens Act, which would provide accurate sex education information in schools.
NYAC has been bringing crowds from Syracuse to Albany to Brooklyn to Long Island to visit with state representatives every year since 2002. Although Housing Works clients typically meet with Senators and Assembly members three times a week during session, Wednesday was unique because of the scope of the involvement. "It's important for legislators to visually see how many people are affected by HIV/AIDS," said NYAC Director of Public Policy Matthew Lesieur.
$11 a day, no way!
In addition to the lobby visits, the day included an introductory presentation with speeches from the who's who of AIDS advocates in Albany including recently appointed AIDS Institute director Humberto Cruz, Assembyman Dick Gottfried and Senator Tom Duane. When Duane got on stage, the HIV-positive senator looked into the crowd and said, "I'm so glad you're all here. It makes it less lonely in Albany," he said. He then referenced his own fight with alcohol and drug abuse, noting he'd been sober for 24 years and that it he and those in the room know it takes work. "Who goes to a meeting and gets sober their first time?"
After the speeches, there was a rally outside the Capitol, where more than 50 people with HIV/AIDS gathered to demand an increase in the amount of money that New York gives to organizations that provide critical case management (COBRA) services to people living with HIV/AIDS; an increase in the public assistance allowance for poor New Yorkers; statewide HASA for All, which would extend desperately needed rental assistance and other entitlements to all poor New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS and end New York City's cruel policy of extending such assistance only after people with HIV develop full-blown AIDS; and the passage of legislation that would cap at 30 percent the amount that low-income people living with AIDS and HIV are required to pay toward their rent.
More than 10,000 poor New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS in private-market apartments are required to give all but $330 of their public assistance-the equivalent of a single person's cash grant-toward their rent. They must survive on $11 per day without the help available in supportive housing: meals, caseworkers, supplemented utility payments and more. Duane and Assembly Member Deborah Glick have introduced legislation that would cap rents for low-income New Yorkers living with HIV/AIDS at 30 percent.
"It's a shame the way I'm living on $11 a day," said Dania Chavez, a Housing Works peer said during the rally. "Soap or napkins? These are the decisions I have to make every day." Other speakers included Housing Works City Issues Organizer Tamara Oyola-Santiago and GMHC organizer Kristin Goodwin. The rally was covered in Albany's Metroland.
The visit to the capital wasn't just about the demands of AIDS advocates but also to show support for Gov. Eliot Spitzer's budget. Unlike Pataki's reign where the budget was balanced on the backs of poor people, Spitzer has proposed a budget that would expand access to family doctors, improve the quality of care, and add $5.6 million in new investments in front-line HIV care and prevention. So instead of fighting for the bare-bones minimum, focus was paid to expanding necessary services to make sure people with HIV/AIDS aren't homeless.
Spitzer's support for AIDS programs plus the ever-more realistic prospect of a Democratic majority in the Senate could mark a fundamental shift in the ability of people living with AIDS and their advocates to make progress in New York State. When some 20 people with HIV/AIDS sat around a conference table with Duane, they spontaneously erupted in applause for the HIV-positive senator's support and thanked him for endorsing HASA for All Statewide. "We're trying to get a pilot program, because we have nothing happening outside the five boroughs," he said. "We're just looking for a Republican cosponsor." When asked which Republicans we should be lobbying, he responded with a laugh. "If I knew that, we'd have a Republican cosponsor."