Connecticut AIDS Resource Coalition

If you haven't called your state Senator & Rep you don't realize the gravity of this budget crisis and the urgency of making these calls. If they don't hear that HIV prevention & syringe exchange is critical, it will be lost. People will no longer have access to these services and jobs will be lost. The HIV prevention infrastructure will be gone.

If you have not already done so, call your state Senator and Representative RIGHT NOW!! These calls need to happen IMMEDIATELY!!! We are hearing from legislators that they are NOT getting many calls about protecting things we care about in the budget!!

Get the rest of your staff, consumers, clients and volunteers to call. NOW!!

The “moderate” Democrats have written a letter to the Governor about the budget and it's ALL BASED ON CUTS and does NOT ADDRESS the REVENUE SIDE! This budget cannot be balanced on cuts alone without causing devastating harm to the poor, the very young and very old, and people with disabilities, including people living with HIV/AIDS!! Click here to see the letter.

The Message to legislators: “Protect HIV/AIDS prevention and syringe exchange funds, health care cuts, and supportive housing! The revenue side must be addressed!”

There's an Approps Committee hearing on the Governor's Mitigation Plan, Thursday at 3 PM. It is important that legislators hear from you about the Governor's proposed cuts. If you cannot attend to testify, you can submit testimony in writing. Send by email: Susan.Keane@cga.ct.gov

I cannot express how important it is that you call your legislators before this Wednesday, March 10, and voice your opposition to the Governors' proposed budget cuts in her FY11 budget and FY10 Deficit Mitigation Plan and the moderate Democrats letter!!!

Legislators are getting pressured from their constituents to cut state spending to close the budget gap and they are not hearing enough from people about protecting vital services for low-income children and families, the disabled, the elderly.

Legislators need to hear from you NOW – by phone or in person. An email is an option, but it is not as effective. If you make one call this year, this is the one!

To find your legislators, go to http://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/menu/CGAFindLeg.asp

Senate Democrats: 860-240-8600 or 1-800-842-1420
House Democrats: 860-240-8500 or 1-800-842-1902
Senate Republicans: 860- 240-8800 or 1- 800- 842-1421
House Republicans: 860-240-8700 or 1-800-842-1423

Thanks to the aggressive advocacy by AIDS housing consumers and supporters across the country and outreach from members of Congress since 2007, the HRSA Administrator issued a notice published in today's Federal Register IMMEDIATELY RESCINDING Amendment 1 to Policy Notice 99-02 imposing a 24 month lifetime cap on the use of Ryan White funding for housing. read more

Specifically, "grantees will not be required to enforce the amendment for beneficiaries that might be at or near the 24-month cumulative cap on short-term and emergency housing assistance. At the same time, grantees will benefit from general policy guidance with regard to the use of Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program funds for housing referral services and short-term or emergency housing needs. A comprehensive review of the Housing Policy will permit HRSA's Administrator time to evaluate completely all aspects of it. The Policy Notice is amended to address updated nomenclature, and is reprinted below for ease of reference."

To view the notice, click here.

The Governor's budget proposes to cut Syringe Exchange and AIDS prevention services by 30% in the Department of Public Health's budget. The cuts to AIDS Services places us at the 1997 funding level; and the cuts to SEP fall below funding levels prior to 1995. During that same time period, the number of people living with HIV/AIDS in the state has doubled. We have publicly stated that we were willing to share the burden of the state's budget crisis, but not to do so disproportionately. A 30% cut is far too deep for us to be able to sustain the tremendous HIV prevention work offered across the state. read more

An analysis of those cuts is below. There are other cuts, particularly in the area of health care (e.g. Medicaid, SAGA) and changes to programs that cover the cost of mental health and other medications that will also impact people living with HIV/AIDS. We will send out the details of those cuts once their impact is analyzed.

	Appropriated SFY 2009-2010	Proposed SFY 2010-2011	+/-	%
Department of Public Health:
AIDS Services	$4,952,598	$3,466,819	($1,485,779)	30%
Syringe Exchange	$455,072	$318,550	($136,522)	30%
Department of Social Services:
CADAP	$606,678	$606,678	-	-
Housing/Homeless	$47,306,657	$44,894,782	($2,411,875)	5%

(This includes AIDS housing. We believe that this cut operationalizes the cuts made last year.)

Delay implementation of the HIV/AIDS Waiver

This home and community-based services waiver that would provide services beyond what Medicaid offers (e.g. case management, homemaker, personal care assistance, adult day health and respite) for up to 100 PLWHA.

Action Steps:

Attend the public hearings on the budget! DSS is tentatively scheduled for the evening of February 11th and DPH for the evening of February 18th. We will need good turnout of PLWHA and providers. All should wear their AIDS Awareness T-shirts so that we stand together as a unified effort.
Reply to AIDS LIFE Campaign e-mail request for information on the impact of the proposed cuts! Under a separate email, Shawn will be requesting information from you as to what impact these cuts will have on your programs (e.g. staff and services lost, number of clients who will no longer be able to access those services, etc.) - Please take the time to respond to that request. We will need to quantify what these cuts will mean in very concrete terms.
Contact your legislators to let them know how these cuts will impact you. For example, if you have an SEP, what would a 30% cut look like in your agency? Click here to find your legislator.

This is only the beginning of the budget process. We will need to respond quickly and strongly as things happen, and will need maximum participation from all of you, your boards, consumers and colleagues. As always, thanks for all you do. Contact Shawn at 860.761.6699 or Leif at 203.258.3718 should you have questions.

We are pleased to announce that the President has not only signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009 (click here to read his remarks) but has announced that the travel ban is lifted and that all HIV+ people will be able to freely travel into the U.S. early in 2010. read more

Thanks to everyone's amazing work and advocacy on these issues!!

Please take a moment to call CT's congressional delegation to thank them for their support. (numbers below) We want to especially thank Senator Dodd for his steadfast leadership on getting the Ryan White Act reauthorized.

The Senator's staffer, Tamar Magarik-Haro who was a great advocate and support through all of this wanted me to pass along this message to you:

"I just wanted to tell you that I was incredibly fortunate and was invited to the White House for the Ryan White bill signing. The ceremony is in about an hour. I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you and all the clients and fellow advocates you work with. I will be thinking about them when this bill gets signed and how much meeting them over the years and hearing their stories have meant to me. Thank you for supporting me and my boss throughout all of this. Please let folks you work with know that I'm thinking about them and hope that this bill does a lot of good for them."

Senator Chris Dodd: 202-224-2823
Senator Joe Lieberman: 202-224-4041
Congressman Jim Himes: 202-225-5541
Congressman John Larson: 202-225-2265
Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro: 202-225-3661
Congressman Chris Murphy: 202-225-4476
Congressman Joe Courtney: 202-225-2076

The AIDS LIFE (Legislative Initiative and Funding Effort) Campaign - a program of the CT AIDS Resource Coalition - is Connecticut's only statewide group that focuses solely on all of the policy-related issues impacting people living with and at high risk for HIV/AIDS - from prevention and education, including needle exchange; to supportive services; to health care, such as Medicaid and CADAP; to housing.

In addition to our advocacy work at the legislature, members of the AIDS LIFE Campaign convene meetings with key state departments such as the Department of Public Health and the Department of Social Services to work with them on a whole host of issues ranging from contracts and timely payments, CADAP, Medicaid changes (e.g. prescription and provider visit co-pays), as well as federal issues such as the HOPWA (Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS) housing program, Ryan White funds, and other pertinent topics that arise.