The 60-year-old was trapped in a bureaucratic quagmire. The HIV/AIDS Services Administration, or HASA, was supposed to pay most of her rent but for months had failed to pay her landlord. Her HASA caseworker had promised her repeatedly that the money was coming, but it never did. Herring was also a few hundred dollars behind on her contribution to her rent.
Now, she found herself in court without her HASA caseworker.
“He had enough time to call me back,” she said as she waited to see the judge. “I don’t know why he isn’t here.”
Herring's situation underscored the challenges faced by an estimated 11,000 HIV-positive New Yorkers who rely on HASA to help pay their rent. Because of budget cuts, some HASA clients and HIV/AIDS advocates say, HASA is having trouble providing housing services to its clients.
“Rents being paid late, apartments not being approved on a timely basis, people getting haphazard services,” said Charles King, Executive Director of Housing Works, an advocacy and service organization that works to improve the quality of life of New Yorkers with HIV/AIDS. “We’re seeing this on an increasing basis across the board.”
A HASA representative declined to give a quotable statement by deadline, but said that the agency does not comment on individual cases, nor does it keep records of how many clients are currently facing eviction or rent arrears.
By law, HASA is required to maintain a ratio of one caseworker to every 34 clients. But interviews with advocates and HASA clients showed that cuts to HASA programming may be affecting the quality of case management services at HASA.
“They don’t have enough people to do the work for the amount of clients they have,” said Kristin Goodwin, Director of New York City Policy and Organizing at Housing Works.
Since his first term as Mayor, Michael Bloomberg has cut millions of dollars from HASA’s budget, affecting nutritional, educational and other services at the agency—including its housing program. In 2009 Bloomberg eliminated HASA’s “Scatter Site II” program, a housing program that provided case management services for six months to clients with HIV/AIDS in independent housing.
In the fiscal year 2010-2011 budget, Bloomberg proposed budgets cuts that would have eliminated 248 HASA case managers—nearly one third of the agency’s staff—but withdrew the proposal after HIV/AIDS advocacy organizations filed a motion in court to prevent the cuts. The organizations charged that the cuts would have violated the lawful staffing ratio.
Goodwin said she has heard stories that range from clients being threatened with eviction from their apartments because HASA did not keep up with their payments, to housing paperwork simply disappearing.
In one case, Goodwin said, a client’s landlord raised the rent and HASA failed to increase their contribution for a full year, leaving the client served with an eviction notice.
“They had called and called and called their HASA worker, and the client had been working with their HASA worker, but nothing went through the system,” Goodwin said.
“It’s been really frustrating in the past couple years to watch the systemic dismantling of HASA services,” she added.
