[NYAPRS Enews] MNT: Oregon Launches New HUD Supportive Housing Initiative For HIV-Positive People Living With Mental Illnesses

[Harvey Rosenthal]

Oregon Receives $1.2M Grant to Provide Rent, Support Services For
HIV-Positive People Living With Mental Illnesses

Medical News Today    November 6, 2007   

 

The HIV Care and Treatment Program in the Oregon Department of Human
Services recently received a three-year, $1.2 million grant from the
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to provide support
services and rental housing for HIV-positive people living with mental
illnesses, the Eugene Register-Guard reports. According to state
officials, Oregon is one of four applicants nationwide to receive the
grant (Palmer, Eugene Register-Guard, 11/1).

 

According to the Oregonian, the funding will be used to provide services
to as many as 30 HIV-positive residents of the five-county Portland
metropolitan area, as well as 20 people living with the disease in eight
other counties along the Interstate 5 corridor. The two areas have the
state's highest concentration of people living with HIV/AIDS, the
Oregonian reports. The treatment program will allocate the funding to
Cascadia Behavioral Healthcare, which will provide mental health
services, and Cascade AIDS Project, which will provide housing support
(Colburn, Oregonian, 11/1). According to Victor Fox, manager of the
state treatment program, about 4,000 people are living with the disease
in Oregon, but other estimates indicate that an additional 2,000 people
in the state might be HIV-positive. Health experts estimate that as many
as 60% of those living with the disease experience some form of mental
illness, the Register-Guard reports (Eugene Register-Guard, 11/1). If
the program is successful, HUD might replicate it in other states, Fox
said.

 

Jim Hlava, vice president of residential services for CBH, said
affordable housing often is the most pressing need for HIV-positive
people with mental illnesses. "It's hard for people to get better unless
they have good stable housing," Hlava said, adding, "They can survive,
but they don't get better." According to Fox, HIV-positive people in
most cases experience depression, but it is the more severe diagnoses,
such as schizophrenia, that make it hard for people to maintain housing.
"They get evicted," and "people choose not to rent to them," Fox said,
adding, "We're saying to those landlords: 'If you allow us to place them
in your facility, they'll have ongoing services, HIV case management and
mental health services'" (AP/Oregonian, 11/2). 

 

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/87826.php 

 

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