Housing Works to Move Headquarters to Brooklyn; New York City Borough Seen as "Epicenter" of HIV/AIDS Epidemic

New York City-based housing and AIDS advocacy group Housing Works on Wednesday announced its plans to move its headquarters to Brooklyn from Manhattan in the next six weeks, saying that Brooklyn is the "epicenter" of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in New York City, the New York Post reports (Gittens, New York Post, 10/7). Housing Works offers social services, including health care, and provides job training and assistance with applications for other services to people living with HIV/AIDS (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 4/14). Michael Kink, Housing Works counsel, said, "AIDS has become an epidemic of poverty, racial disparity and lack of access to health care," adding, "In Brooklyn, all these aspects of the epidemic have come together in a deadly way." Kink said that the "overwhelming majority" of HIV-positive people in New York City are black, Latino or Asian, according to the New York Daily News. Dr. Marco Mason, executive director of the Caribbean Women's Health Association, said that people born in the Caribbean might represent 50% of HIV/AIDS cases among immigrants in the city, according to the Daily News. "When one looks at the situation globally, the Caribbean is the second epicenter outside Africa," Mason said, adding, "We are seeing that reflected in our community here" (Shelby, New York Daily News, 10/6). From January 2003 to September 2003, there were approximately 28,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in Manhattan and 22,000 in Brooklyn, according to the Post. However, 379 people died of AIDS-related illnesses in Brooklyn during the same period, while 312 died of AIDS-related illnesses in Manhattan. New York City Council member Yvette Clarke said, "When you look at the infrastructure in Brooklyn, you have a burgeoning working class immigrant population who don't get the type of medical attention that other populations may get" (New York Post, 10/7).

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