CITY WIRE: THE BLOG
AIDS Program Cuts Stir Protest
Johann Hamilton |
Advocates are speaking out against proposed cuts to programs that feed and house people living with HIV/AIDS.
Government
As AIDS Threat Changes, Push For Housing Renews
Diana Scholl |
Advocates, hoping Gov. Cuomo will back a cap on rent for people in AIDS housing, say research shows that shelter saves lives and reduces government expenditures.
Economy
The Survivors
Melanie Lefkowitz |
“People want to shop local. There is a big movement around it, and people understand it.”
Bronx
AIDS Patients Battle City Bureaucracy
Hannah Rappleye |
Because of budget cuts, some HASA clients and HIV/AIDS advocates say, HASA is struggling to provide housing services to its clients, including rent subsidies that keep them from being evicted.
ARTS and CULTURE
Hip Hop For The Deaf And The Def'
Kerri MacDonald |
Silent Mob isn’t the only deaf rap group out there. But as far as the group members know, they are the only group that performs American Sign Language hip hop.
Health and Environment
New Bill Would Change HIV Testing Across State
Lauren Raheja |
Gov. Paterson is expected to sign a bill that would mandate that physicians routinely offer their patients HIV testing, a move that experts say would reduce the rate of infection.
Health and Environment
City Pulls Back From AIDS Services Cuts
Eileen Markey |
AIDS activists claimed victory Thursday afternoon after the Bloomberg administration scrapped plans to cut $10 million from the HIV/AIDS ServicesAdministration. The budget ax would have eliminated 248 caseworkers who help poor people living with AIDS get assistance with health, food and housing. The caseworkers’ positions are apparently safe now. On Tuesday, the advocacy group Housing Works sued to stop the cuts. Attorneys for the Bloomberg administration on Thursday morning told U.S. District Court Judge Cheryl Pollak they were withdrawing the cuts, according to Housing Works’ Senior Staff Attorney Armen Merjian.
Health and Environment
AIDS Activists Sue To Stop Budget Cuts
Eileen Markey |
The city budget fight is headed to a new venue: U.S. District Court. On Tuesday veteran AIDS activists at HousingWorks filed a motion for a restraining order to halt Mayor Bloomberg’s plans to slash funding for the city’s AIDS services agency. Justice Cheryl Pollak of the Eastern District will hear arguments in the case Thursday morning. Bloomberg’s budget – currently in the home stretch of negotiation with the City Council – calls for a $10 million cut to the HIV/AIDS Services Administration, which would translate to 248 fewer case workers for very poor, very sick people who get help with housing, food and medical care through HASA. “Those benefits save lives,” Leroy Rose, a HousingWorks client who has AIDS and receives HASA benefits said in a statement.
Bronx
Making Their Way
Curtis Stephen |
For Tasnim Huque, the past few months have been full of surprises. Her Muslim parents, who immigrated to New York City from India’s sprawling eastern city of Calcutta in the late 1980s, are gradually allowing the 18-year-old to show some independence. While there’s little inhibiting most seniors at Hunter Science High School in Manhattan from attending the prom— except, perhaps, the cost of limos, gowns and tuxes— Huque was certain that she’d be missing it for a different reason: her 6 p.m. curfew. But her parents recently told her that she could, in fact, attend.“They even bought me a nice Westernized dress,” she says excitedly. And that’s not all she’s excited about.
