AIDS Care Group

2010 McKinney-Vento Grant

We are pleased to announced that we have been awarded funding for the 2010 McKinney-Vento homeless assistance grant by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. We were awarded funding for 13 housing units for the Permanent Supportive Housing Project. The Continuum of Care (CoC) Homeless Assistance Program is an important part of HUD’s mission. CoCs all over the country continue to improve the lives of homeless men, women and children through their local planning efforts and through the direct housing service programs funded in this year’s competition. The programs and CoCs funded through the CoC Homeless Assistance Program continue to illustrate their value by improving accountability and performance every year.

CDC Awards $42 Million to Community-Based Organizations

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced today that it has awarded $42 million to 133 community-based organizations (CBOs) to help implement HIV prevention efforts among populations at greatest risk. The average award is approximately $323,000 per year for five years. “This funding is a critical part of CDC’s national HIV prevention efforts and is in line with the priorities identified in the recently released National HIV/AIDS Strategy,” said Jonathan Mermin, MD, director of CDC’s Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention. ”Governments on the federal and state levels cannot end this epidemic alone, and these resources will help to give many communities the tools they need to fight HIV locally.” We are thrilled to be included in the CDC Award Funding.

$2.4 Million Funding Reduction From HRSA

Philadelphia Health Department’s Press Release:

FEDERAL CUTS FORCE REDUCTION IN HIV/AIDS SERVICES
Some Programs To Be Eliminated

The Philadelphia EMA Ryan White HIV Planning Council has adopted a revised funding allocation in response to federal funding cuts totaling $2.4 million. The new plan preserves funding for the core medical and social services that are most needed by persons living with HIV and AIDS as well as other important supportive services.

In late May, the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA) announced a reduction in Ryan White Part A Supplemental funds to the City of Philadelphia’s AIDS Activities Coordinating Office (AACO). AACO is the designated grantee for the nine-county eligible metropolitan area (EMA) which includes Philadelphia and its adjacent suburban Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey counties.

Earlier in the year, the HIV Planning Council had adopted an allocation plan that included level funding for all medical and supportive services that had been funded during the preceding year. Because the final portion of this year’s award was not announced until late May, the plan had to be adjusted to compensate for the $2.4 million reduction.

“We are very grateful to the members of the Philadelphia EMA Ryan White HIV Planning Council for their many hours of hard and thoughtful work in making these painful decisions,” said AACO Director John Cella.

The Philadelphia HIV Planning Council is responsible for developing a plan that maintains support for the “core services” identified by Congress and HRSA that meets the medical needs of HIV positive consumers. Because of the severity of this year’s funding cut, and successive cuts over the last four years, every service or provider will be impacted by these reductions.

The HIV Planning Council’s Finance Committee developed a proposed plan in collaboration with the Comprehensive Planning Committee, which earlier in the year had developed priority rankings for all of the Ryan White-funded services. These rankings were based on key criteria including an analysis of trends in the nature of the epidemic; socio-demographic and economic data; service priorities, service utilization and spending data; consumers’ preferences as expressed in surveys, focus groups and “town hall” meetings; and the identification of alternate providers and sources of funding support for the included services.

In accordance with the Ryan White Act’s mandate, at least 75% of the Region’s service dollars must be allocated to ten “core services” categories. The HIV Planning Council’s revised allocations plan exceeded this requirement, funding Core Services at 81% of available service dollars.

Funding for ambulatory medical care, drug reimbursement, and case management, which are considered to be the highest priority services, was reduced by 4%; reductions for some other HRSA-designated core services (substance abuse treatment, mental health therapy, oral health, early intervention, treatment adherence) were capped at an overall level of 6%.

The second ranked tier of supportive services (transportation, food bank/home delivered meals, housing assistance, legal services, care outreach and direct financial assistance) were reduced by 11%. Current year funding for the third tier of services (nutritional services, home health, translation and interpretation, psychosocial support services, day or respite care, and rehabilitation care) will be terminated as of July 31, to free up dollars that will then be used to limit reductions to the three highest ranked services.

In May, HRSA also notified AACO that three supportive services that were included in the March allocations plan were no longer eligible to receive Ryan White support. These services (complementary therapies, client advocacy, and buddy/companion services) will be terminated as of June 30 and the resulting savings will be used to reduce the shortfall in funding for ambulatory outpatient medical care, case management and drug reimbursement..

The AIDS Care Group and the St. Michael’s House

In 1998, the agency was at first able to utilize its own small clinical facility. As the programs expanded the agency rented space from its neighbor, Catholic Social Services. As these spaces grew insufficient, the agency found and purchased in December 2005 a building in need of significant repair, but ideally sized and located for its many successful and supportive programs.Formerly the rectory of St. Michael’s Parish, this once grand structure is located in the center of Chester’s business district. It is a 100 year old granite building, three stories in height with a full basement, and on a beautiful lot of ground. It is within walking distance to many of the city’s most economically stressed neighborhoods. It is the ideal structure that would benefit from a complete interior renovation.

St. Michael’s House is the new name for the structure formally known as St. Michael’s Rectory. It is a strategic structure that will help the agency to address social services and housing opportunities for its clients. The rectory, once part of a triad of buildings belonging to St. Michael’s Parish, is now a singular, non-denominational building. The building will be entirely converted, including seven apartments for women on the upper two floors; and at entry level and in the basement, a new and expanded kitchen, Drop-in-Center, and community rooms capable of expanding the food and activity programs and counseling divisions of the agency. Throughout the building the art of patients and regional artists will be on constant display.

Included in the strategic plan of the agency is the need to address the continuing stigma of AIDS in the community of Chester; to honor and not just bury the dead; and to find ways to improve the communication between patients, their families, and their neighbors. The AIDS Care Group proposes to address these needs by incorporating into the renovation project an AIDS memorial. Working with the existing grotto on the front lawn of the rectory, this monument of the facility will become a large and abiding memorial, the AIDS Memorial of Chester, which will speak for years to come of a city that can show consolation to even its most disenfranchised citizens.

The AIDS Care Group has committed $101,000 to the purchase of the St. Michael’s Rectory. In August 2006 the non-profit Design Collaborative of the American Institute of Architects completed a conceptual design for the rectory and donated the services to the AIDS Care Group. Additional funding totaling $275,000 has been estimated as required to complete the entire interior renovation including the seven new 2nd and 3rd floor apartments and the first floor community spaces.

The AIDS Care Group, through its new facility, will see increased client-centered programs; will provide seven new clean, safe and affordable permanent housing units for women living with HIV/AIDS; will have a community resource center for the display of art and the incorporation of art into the daily activities of patients; and will provide these services in a building that will be known for its contribution to the health and social services for the City of Chester and its residents living with HIV/AIDS.

A Center for Women’s Health

Starting as a disease identified to men of means, the face of AIDS is becoming more akin to that of minority women living with poverty. Clinical laboratory markers of disease at any level spell a more frightening picture for women than men. The disease progression differs more adversely, and the social consequence of disease has a far more profound effect. In establishing a Women’s Health Care Center for the management of HIV disease, the AIDS Care Group will provide a full serve medical and social services center equipped with the people and the facilities to address the needs women and their children coming in for clinical and social service needs. The facilities will incorporate areas for child care, congregate meals, psychosocial services, group meetings, art therapy, lectures, housing counseling, networking, and internet access.

Why Expand Our Dental Program?

The dental program is one of only five in the Philadelphia region funded to provide dental care to the uninsured patient living with HIV disease. So why a need for expansion? Because the five programs lumped together barely touch the surface of needs of the HIV population living in the Philadelphia region or the adjacent western counties. The South Center HIV/AIDS Consortia which provides services to HIV patients from 14 counties in the state has identified a dental manpower shortage for patients who are well-insured or don’t have infectious diseases. The need for public health dentistry in Pennsylvania is profound. The AIDS Care Group has addressed this need by placing a satellite office in Coatesville, Chester County, Pennsylvania. A second satellite office is planned for Sharon Hill in Delaware County. The three offices will have a better geographic distribution to meet client needs.

Offsetting Changes in Governmental Funding

The Ryan White CARE Act is the principal source of funding for the AIDS Care Group.  Annual budgets have grown from $425,000 in 1998 to $2,480,000 in 2007.  The legislation authorizing the Ryan White CARE Act was recently re-enacted for a period of three years.  These next three years will see funding cuts of 5%.  More cuts are expected at a time when more patients will be seeking care; and more of those patients will be without insurance.  The AIDS Care Group is taking a long-term view of a predicament that will become palpable within the next three years.  To off-set anticipated funding losses the AIDS Care Group is planning for the development of profit centers within its core of clinical and social services, including dental care, housing, and addictions counseling.  With proper planning, networking, and marketing, the AIDS Care Group will introduce fee-for-services in each of its identified program-sustaining divisions.  Such marketing will allow for the agency to meet the needs of the insured, and the low-income workers who are currently in need of care and services.  With a business and marketing plan tailored to the contiguous communities in which the AIDS Care Group already provides services, the nature of the income stream to the agency will change dramatically, thereby establishing a group of services identified to sustain other services where funding will most likely be reduced by government support and grants.

Addiction in Chester

Smoking, crack cocaine, heroine, and now gambling.  Addictions have been a way of life in Chester for over fifty years.  Substance abuse has been identified as the single greatest cause of the level of crime throughout the city; and is most probably the cause for domestic chaos, low educational attainment rates, and the HIV disease progression rate.  With State laws currently allowing for the introduction of gambling, Chester has been given the first license for harness racing and will undoubtedly be identified as one of the first municipalities in the state requiring expansion of gambling addiction services.  Accessing timely and culturally sensitive services for the patient living with HIV disease and addictions is complicated by independent providers working without the benefit of appropriate funding streams for the care of the uninsured and the under-insured.  The AIDS Care Group will be incorporating substance abuse counseling and gambling addictions counseling to its range of psychosocial services in the coming years.