Employment and Housing Have a Critical Impact on HIV Health

Amida Care, an NYC nonprofit health plan provider, is advocating for the implementation of a 24-month HIV/AIDS Services Administration (HASA) workforce readiness program where benefits remain in place while income and hours worked increase. The readiness program will allow time to adjust to the demands of sustained employment and encourage living wage employment.

Flexibility would facilitate employment, support health and quality of life, and realize cost savings when public assistance is no longer required. During this transition, public assistance for housing, nutrition, and health care must be kept in place for people living with HIV who can work, for long enough that they can attain a living wage. Medicaid benefits should remain in place without being contingent on working.�

Our goal is to build in greater flexibility without being punitive. This approach is cost-effective since people who would otherwise be dependent on public assistance would transition to living wage employment. If 5 percent of people living with AIDS in New York City who are eligible for Medicaid transitioned to work after a two-year grace period, the city could save $134 million on housing benefits after ten years. If this community earned enough to leave Medicaid, New York State would save an additional $887 million after ten years.�

Amida Care has submitted a recommendation to take this approach to the New York State Ending the Epidemic Workforce subcommittee.

An estimated 3,700 New Yorkers with HIV who reside outside of New York City are homeless or do not live in a stable housing environment. This poses a formidable barrier to retaining them in care and providing access to HIV treatment that leads to viral suppression.

Amida Care recommends expanding access to rental assistance for people living with HIV who live outside the limits of New York City. This will improve individual and community heath, reduce the costly use of homeless shelters, and generate offset savings by preventing new HIV infections and reducing avoidable crisis care.

Join national advocacy efforts to preserve access to health care for people living with HIV by participating in AIDS.�

For more information, visit https://www.amidacareny.org