The HIV Ryan White Funding Delays ’Resolved’

By Lou Chibbaro Jr.  washingtonblade.com

‘We got hit pretty hard,’ said Don Blanchon, of Whitman-Walker Health. (Washington Blade file photo by Michael Key)

A delay in the disbursement of federal Ryan White AIDS funds earlier this year that forced some community-based groups to reduce their services to people with HIV and AIDS appears to be resolved, according to officials with Baltimore and D.C. groups hit hard by the funding delays.

Tom Bonderenko, executive director of Moveable Feast, a group that provides meals for homebound people with HIV/AIDS in the Baltimore area, said his group hopes to resume full services to about 370 of its 1,200 clients that faced meal delivery cutbacks due to the funding delays.

“On this past Friday we did receive a reimbursement from the Baltimore City Health Department for some of our outstanding reimbursable funds,” he said on Wednesday. “Although we are still in a decrease service scenario for our clients, that will be adjusted in the next few weeks.”

Moveable Feast was among hundreds of community-based AIDS service organizations throughout the country adversely affected by federal AIDS funding delays initially caused by Congress taking far longer than usual to approve the federal budget for fiscal year 2011.

The city health departments in D.C. and Baltimore, which normally receive the Ryan White AIDS funds and pass them on to the community groups, reduced their previously approved grants to these groups earlier this year when they could not determine when the federal funds would be disbursed.

D.C.’s Whitman-Walker Health and the D.C. group Metro Teen AIDS were among the groups encountering problems from the funding delays.

According to officials with AIDS organizations affected by the delays, including Whitman-Walker Health, a miscalculation in Ryan White funding allocations for various cities and states by the federal agency that disburses federal AIDS funds created further delays.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Service Administration (HRSA) acknowledged last month that the delays could adversely impact as many as 500,000 people with HIV and AIDS throughout the country.

HRSA spokesperson Marty Cramer told the Blade Wednesday the funding calculation problem has been resolved and HRSA is now forwarding the federal funds to cities and states, including D.C. and Baltimore.

“The situation is resolved,” he said. “The funding is out.”

Bonderenko said the funding delays forced his organization to reduce the number of meals it provides to its clients.

Last week, he said he was hopeful but uncertain that HRSA would soon disburse the funds to the Baltimore City Department of Health, which, in turn, would reimburse Moveable Feast for services it has provided to AIDS patients under a city contract.

“Basically, we are out of money,” Bonderenko told the Blade last week. “We won’t be able to assist 370 clients who depend on our service for their meals.”