Categories: New York City
11.22.2013
The annual budget battle to preserve HIV/AIDS supportive housing funding is over
We are delighted to announce that, as part of his final budget modification yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg fully restored all cuts to HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) supportive housing contracts.
Five years ago, Mayor Bloomberg proposed cutting HIV/AIDS supportive housing contracts by $1.876 million. In subsequent years, he increased that cut to $5.1 million. Each year, the Network’s staff and members fought vociferously alongside VOCAL, Housing Works, the Momentum Project and other advocates to convince the City Council to restore the funding. Thanks to the leadership of Speaker Christine Quinn and General Welfare Chairs Annabel Palma and then-Council Member Bill de Blasio, the funding was restored each of the past five years. Each year, however, the administration failed to restore this funding to what’s known as “the baseline budget” for permanent restoration. Yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg did just that. In short: The annual HASA budget dance is no more.
The Network staff wants to thank all the members, tenants and advocacy partners who came out year after year for rallies, press conferences, meetings and testimony. We also want to thank Mayor Bloomberg for making this permanent restoration and applaud his efforts to leave Mayor-elect de Blasio with a balanced budget.
For more information on this multi-year budget battle, visit here.
To see Mayor Bloomberg’s press release and budget documents visit, here and here (p.29).