California: AIDS Group Presses for More Housing

On May 15 outside of San Francisco City Hall, participants in a rally urged city officials to oppose planned federal cuts to housing subsidies for people with AIDS. At the rally, organized by the AIDS Housing Alliance, people also spoke of how the state Ellis Act, which allows landlords to exit the rental market, was being used to evict people with HIV/AIDS.

At the Board of Supervisors meeting the following day, Supervisors Bevan Dufty and Tom Ammiano requested an official city meeting to examine the loss of AIDS housing funds.

Simultaneous increases in the cost of housing and decreases in federal rental subsidies "have created a situation in which it is difficult for the local agencies responsible for implementation… to maintain participation levels," found a report prepared for Dufty by Andrew Murray in the legislative analyst's office. Over the past three years, "deep" rental subsidies were cut 20 percent, and "shallow" federal subsidies provided by Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) and the Ryan White CARE Act were cut 31 percent, the report stated.

"This housing wait list is a joke," said Norman Tanner, a member of the HIV Health Services Planning Council. "The disease is still here, folks… people are being infected daily."

Nearly one-fourth of all Ellis Act evictions are in the Castro, affecting many HIV/AIDS patients, said Brian Basinger, director of the alliance. "Disabled people with HIV/AIDS depend on living in San Francisco to maintain access to medical care," he said. "It is also important for many to live in neighborhoods of origin, like the Castro, to retain access to social support networks and their sense of community."

The alliance called on supervisors to backfill cuts to AIDS housing subsidies, as the city has traditionally done; create a comprehensive AIDS housing plan; and lobby state officials to repeal the Ellis Act.

Back to other news for May 26, 2006