ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, January 25, 1997 TAG: 9701270040
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
Blue Ridge AIDS Support Services Inc. will lose its core funding in 1998 because Virginia did not have enough AIDS cases to qualify for the federal assistance program that has kept the Roanoke-based organization afloat for four years.
The state fell nine cases short of the 1,500 it needed to qualify for 1998 money from Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS, a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development program that helps people with HIV or AIDS pay for rent, utility bills, prescription drugs and even bus fare to doctor's appointments.
The HUD program provides "our total funding," said Keith Hall, executive director of Blue Ridge AIDS Support Services. "That's it. It is absolutely crucial."
Until 1996, Virginia always had the requisite 1,500 AIDS cases. (HUD does not include HIV cases in its count.) But in March, the Richmond-Petersburg metropolitan area came up with 1,500 cases on its own. That qualified the area as a separate region, as are Northern Virginia and Hampton Roads.
Without the Richmond-area numbers, the rest of the state could muster only 1,491 cases.
As a result, people with HIV or AIDS in 91 state localities will lose about $700,000 in funding. Payments ranged from $100 emergency utilities subsidies to as much as $4,000 a year in rental assistance.
Every March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention counts the number of cases in each state region and apportions money based on those totals. Last April - one month after last year's count - the Richmond region topped 1,500 cases.
The funding loss means that Blue Ridge AIDS Support Services (BRASS) "is scrambling in as many directions as it possibly can to find other sources of funding," Hall said.
BRASS covers 12 cities and 29 counties in Central and Southwest Virginia. It serves about 500 clients in the Roanoke and Lynchburg areas alone.
BRASS holds regular fund-raising activities and has been the beneficiary of fund-raisers held by businesses and community organizations.
"But we can't count on that," Hall said. "One will bring in $100, one $1,000. We don't put that in the budget."
Raising funds was the forte of Artis Prillaman of Martinsville, who was president of the BRASS board of directors, Hall said.
Prillaman died of pneumonia two weeks ago.
"It's been an incredible loss for BRASS," Hall said. "Once this withdrawal of funds came down, Art immediately started working, looking for other resources. He was going to go to Richmond to make an appeal for some state funding. And of course, that didn't happen.
"There is no one else who can step in and do it."
BRASS will receive $173,585 from the HUD program this year, about $14,000 less than the organization received last year and about $3,000 less than it received in 1995.
"It's a horrendous amount of state to cover with such a small amount of money," Hall said.
The bulk of the funding has been used to provide long-term rental assistance for clients who are in danger of becoming homeless because of loss of job or home, Hall said.
There are 25 such clients in the BRASS service area. Hall said he is worried about what will happen to those 25 people next year without the HUD program funding.
"How can we possibly go to those people and say, 'I'm sorry. We have no source of funding for you?''' he asked. "That would put people on the street. We just cannot do that."
The Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development appealed to HUD, but HUD lawyers determined the agency has no power to waive the requirement, spokesman David Enger said. "At the time the application was made, the requirement had not been met," he said.
That explanation doesn't cut it with Robert Richards, deputy director of the Virginia Department of Housing and Community Development. His agency distributes the federal money in Virginia.
"Essentially, they're telling us to defund those programs or cut the service by 50 percent and spread funding over two years," Richards said. "If you think about the life expectancy of these people, that doesn't seem to be a very reliable solution."
The state may apply for another pot of funding from Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS, but it must compete against other states, said Shannon Girouard, a Housing and Community Development employee who administers the HUD program in Virginia.
BRASS, too, will search for other funding sources, Hall said.
"That's something we can do as soon as we find a president who has time to volunteer to do this work," Hall said, "hopefully someone who has Art's qualifications and knowledge in grant-writing and sources, where to go to find these foundations that have money.
"Finding that person is going to be very difficult."
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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