HIV Homelessness A Catastrophic Failure

The article by Carl Siciliano which you can read below centers on the youth homelessness but what is equally as heart wrenching and catastrophic in terms of lives lost and so many thousand$ to treat a person to then loose that person for lack of a home, any home. 

People mostly making too much money in social security (about $1400-1550 a month) and not qualifying for that affordable housing is been talked about, not qualifying for much including medicaid and food stamps. Only because they worked and made more money than those that did not work or work but had other sources to help them on less than about $1300.. 

In NYC there is ADAP for meds for AIDS patients and Doctor’s, I believe that it covers HIV which in many states it does not cover (you have to have AIDS) For that group what can they do with meds if they have no place to keep them?  For them there is only a shelter. They most be in a shelter to qualify for housing help. Only because they worked. For them is better not to take any meds and get a job until they crossover to AIDS and even then those $1500 dollars or so will hang around their necks like an anvil while you are swimming in the East River.

It is not easy living on $950 a month. It is harder on $1400.

Adam Gonzalez

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HIV Prevention and Homeless Youth, Fixing a Catastrophic Failure

by Carl Siciliano

The executive director of the Ali Forney Center argues housing should be a core part of HIV prevention for young people.

by Carl Siciliano at poz.com

One of the hardest tasks at the Ali Forney Center is telling one of our youths that they have tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Having already been dealt the cruel blows of family rejection and homelessness, our youths struggle daily with despair. When they find out that they are HIV positive about half of our youths become so despondent that we have to have them hospitalized for risk of suicide.

Every month, 1,000 young people in our nation between the ages of 13 and 24 are infected with HIV. A hugely disproportionate number of these new infections are among LGBT youth of color. There is an undeniable correlation between HIV infection rates among youth and poverty. And the failure of HIV prevention efforts to reduce new infections among these youths is undeniably contributed to by a lack of clarity and vision in public policy about how homelessness and poverty force young people into situations where they are at grave risk of infection.

Last year in the United States at least 500,000 youths experienced homelessness, however there was only enough capacity in the youth shelters to house 50,000 of them. Lacking shelter, a great many homeless youth turn to prostitution to survive . A recent New York Times article cites a study done by John Jay College that indicates that almost 90 percent of the surveyed minors who engage in survival sex indicated that they would stop if they could, but they cited lack of shelter as a major barrier to doing so.

HIV prevention efforts directed at homeless youth typically focus on condom distribution and HIV prevention education. But to focus on condoms and awareness, without responding to the lack of shelter, which forces homeless youth into survival sex, is a failed policy. Nothing heightens the risk of homeless youth becoming infected with HIV more than the lack of shelter, and nothing diminishes their risk behaviors more than providing them with shelter.

The Ali Forney Center and the Treatment Action Group (TAG) have recently begun examining how we can work together to advocate for HIV Prevention Strategies for youth to incorporate the need for housing as a core prevention component. Frank Selvaggi and Bill Shea, who are respectively Board Members of TAG and the Ali Forney Center, have recently offered to contribute up to $50,000 dollars to match private donations to the Ali Forney Center that are made in support of our housing development fund, recognizing that expanding the access to shelter for homeless youth will greatly reduce their HIV infection risk.

Additionally they are assisting TAG fund a new prevention policy coordinator to implement an ambitious advocacy agenda to generate political leadership, research and policy initiatives to more effectively address the current crisis in HIV prevention in the United States, focusing on the highest-risk populations including homeless youth, transgendered persons, and young men who have sex with men.

To make a contribution to the Ali Forney Center's Housing Development Fund, click here.

Nothing makes a homeless youth safer than having a roof over their head.