New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced in December that the state is spending $200 million to end the AIDS epidemic by 2020. Some of the money will fund housing assistance for people with HIV and AIDS.
Shelter is a basic human need. Brenda Rosen from Breaking Ground, a nonprofit that offers subsidized housing and on-site medical care, said people living with HIV or AIDS are at a higher risk of losing it, and that makes it harder to treat their illness.
“I mean, when you’re living on the streets, not only are you going to have problems affording your medication, but you’re going to have problems storing your medication and making sure if something needs to be refrigerated that it’s being refrigerated," she said. "I mean, those things just don’t happen.”
Rosen said at the 18 affordable housing buildings Breaking Ground runs, tenants can take their medication on time and make their doctor’s appointments.
“When you come inside, and you have a place to live, and you have supports, often times people can quickly get back on their feet and be able to manage those things on a daily basis themselves,” she said.
Doctors, therapists, and social workers are on-site to make sure people get access to public assistance, so they can afford to manage their illness.
“Without insurance there is no way that people can afford the medication that is most helpful,” she said.
Rosen said housing and services cost the public about $25,000 a person each year, about half the cost of what the public pays to take care of a chronically homeless person, and all the while helping to stop the spread of the illness by treating people.
“The number of people that are contracting and living with HIV and AIDS is decreasing every day, so that’s a huge success,” she said.
As of 2013, the Connecticut Department of Public Health says about 10 thousand people are living with HIV or AIDS in the state. The United Way of Long Island says over 6,000 people in the region have HIV or AIDS, as of that same year.