AIDS Action Network Alert

The following is an AIDS Action Alert targeted to those activists in the following states: LA, MD, MO, MT, NE, NJ, UT, and VT.

HOPWA Funding On The Line; Senate VA/HUD Appropriations Subcommittee Set To Mark Up FY'97 Bill This Wednesday

The Senate VA/HUD Appropriations Subcommittee is expected to mark up its FY '97 bill this Wednesday, July 10. The Senate is our last chance to increase FY '97 funding for HOPWA.

Action

Call your Senator on the VA/HUD Appropriations Committee and urge him/her to provide $250 million in FY '97 funding for HOPWA. All Senators can be reached at 202-224-3121. E-mail addresses for your Senators can be found posted in HandsNet at Resources/Congressional Contacts.

Remember to tell your Senator that:

• Stable housing helps prevent the early onset of illness and maintains the quality of life for HIV-infected individuals and their families. Without stable housing, many people with HIV disease will die prematurely, because it is virtually impossible to link them to care services and life-sustaining treatments if they do not have a stable place to live.
• HOPWA is the only federal housing program that provides cities and states hardest-hit by the AIDS epidemic with the resources to address the housing crisis facing people living with HIV/AIDS in their communities. The housing provided by HOPWA dollars reduces unnecessary hospitalizations and reduces the use of emergency health care services by an estimated $47,000 per person per year.
• Level funding of the HOPWA program has added to the growing housing crisis communities face in battling the AIDS epidemic. Since FY '95, the number of metropolitan areas and states qualifying for HOPWA formula grants has increased by approximately 23 percent, and the number of new AIDS cases reported by the CDC has increased by almost one-third. Yet in that same time period, HOPWA funding has remained flat at $171 million!
• Without an increase in FY '97 funding for HOPWA, more and more people living with HIV/AIDS will be living -- and dying -- on the streets of your home towns.

Senate VA/HUD Appropriations Subcommittee

Christopher Bond (R-MO) chair, Conrad Burns (R-MT), Ted Stevens (R-AK), Richard Shelby (R-AL), Robert Bennett (R-UT), Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-CO), Barbara Mikulski (D-MD), Patrick Leahy (D-VT), J. Bennett Johnson (D-LA), Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ), Bob Kerrey (D-NE)

Paid for with contributions from AIDS Action Network Members

For more information, contact:
AIDS Action Council
1875 Connecticut Avenue NW #700
Washington DC 20009
202-986-1300
202-986-1345 (fax)
202-332-9614 (tty)
E-Mail: aidsaction@aidsaction.org