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March 21, 2008
HATCHET JOB
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AIDS job training got Peña where she is today |
We know Senate Republicans want to find ways to trim the budget—but taking money away from poor disabled children whose parents have AIDS and from people living with HIV/AIDS who are trying to re-enter the work force isn't the way to do it. The Senate's one-house budget completely cuts $1.4 million in job training funds for people with AIDS and fails to provide money to restore "SSI invisibility," the cold-hearted Pataki-era policy that counts SSI disability benefits for children toward household income. Yet for all the cutting of help to poor people, the one-house budget still keeps in place handouts to big corporations in lieu of Medicaid reform.
Seven programs in New York State receive funding to provide job training for people living with HIV/AIDS, a funding stream that has existed since 2001. Julie Peña came to the Housing Works Job Program after stints in prison and a battle with drug addiction. Job training gave her the skills and confidence to go back college, and today she directs Housing Works' transitional housing program. Peña can't imagine what her life would have been like without state-funded job training. "There's more to life than sitting home and collecting benefits," she said. "Through the Job Training Program I saw all of the opportunities in front of me."...
BYE-BYE BAN?
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Kerry, we salute your bill repealing the HIV immigration ban |
When the House Foreign Service Committee signed off on $50 billion for the reauthorization of The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) on March 13, a happy addition included attaching Sen. John Kerry (D-MA)'s HIV Nondiscrimination in Travel and Immigration Act to the global AIDS legislation. Kerry's provision would repeal the 1993 Congressional provision in the Immigration and Nationality Act banning HIV-positive travelers and immigrants from entering the U.S.
For bureaucratic and political reasons, a reversal of the travel ban wasn't included in the House version of the PEPFAR bill but as the Washington Blade reported, Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA) said she is committed to include it when Congress conferences the bill upon its return April 1.
Some House Dems were hesitant to draw attention to lifting the travel ban out of concern that attention would bring opposition, and asked advocates to keep the provision's introduction hush-hush. "They were worried it would become an 'election year issue,'" said Nathan Schaefer, director of public policy at the Gay Men's Health Crisis. But the tune has changed since the Senate bill has received a warm reception from the public and, more importantly, the White House...
ACTION ALERT: AVERT A COBRA CALAMITY!
sure an increase occurs
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Give Gottfried a call |
Two weeks ago, staffers for Assembly Member Dick Gottfried, chair of the Assembly Health Committee, told AIDS advocates that a 15 percent rate increase for COBRA programs would likely be in the Assembly's one-house bill. That was smart policy: COBRA programs, which provide crucial psychosocial case management for low-income people living with AIDS and HIV, haven't seen a rate increase this decade, and most COBRA programs are now in deficit.
Last week, Gottfried himself assured advocates that the rate increase was still on the table and that he intended to raise the issue in the Budget Conference at the Health Table. But more recently, Gottfried staffers said that the only help COBRA could expect to receive is a three percent cost-of living adjustment, and even that increase is not highly likely given changing revenue forecasts. Meanwhile, the budget will probably give hospitals, nursing homes and other large health care industry players bloated trend factor increases, while small community-based organizations are struggling!
That's not good enough.
Contact Gottfried's office at 518-455-4941, and tell him that we are counting on him as one of our strongest champions to seriously fight for a meaningful COBRA rate increase this year. New York's budget crisis isn't going to be solved by starving HIV/AIDS community-based organizations.Read the rest: "ACTION ALERT: AVERT A COBRA CALAMITY!"
CALLING ON CONGRESS
ETHA demonstration project moves forward
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Housing Works staff Susan Miles and Beverly Sutton explain the importance of ADHCs as Clinton staffer Ann Gavaghan takes notes |
Five Housing Works clients and staff went to Washington, D.C., this week to prod New York's Congressional delegation to sign a letter urging the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to match New York State's $1.4 million rate increase for AIDS Adult Day Health Care (ADHC) programs with $1.4 million in federal dollars.
The staff at each one of the 14 offices visited said they supported the increase and many agreed to sign on to the letter—though all were hesitant to take the lead...
Read the rest: "CALLING ON CONGRESS"
WALKING THE WALK
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Meet Eric Bailey |
Securing $200,000 worth of supportive housing for people with HIV/AIDS. A summit in one week. The biggest HIV/AIDS rally Mississippi has ever seen.
These are just some of the challenges facing Eric Bailey, who joined AIDS Action in Mississippi this month as a grassroots organizer. An HIV-positive man with Mississippi roots, Bailey should prove invaluable in expanding the influence of AAIM as the state's AIDS advocates continue to put pressure on elected officials to create supportive housing for poor people living with AIDS—and firm up plans for cross-country caravans to descend on the presidential debate in Oxford, Mississippi, on September 26. Caravan organizers are planning to stage the largest AIDS rally Mississippi has ever seen...
Read the rest: "WALKING THE WALK"