Sixty-two local agencies joined together last week in a letter to Mayor Daley calling on him to provide for a $1 million increase in city funding for HIV prevention services in the 2004 budget. (View the letter www.aidschicago.org/pdf/organizational_signon.pdf.) At the same time, hundreds of Chicago residents have phoned the mayor’s office echoing the agencies’ request.
‘Today’s letter from local agencies is yet another clarion call to the mayor that the unabated spread of this deadly disease throughout our City is totally unacceptable,’ said Brent Adams, policy associate at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago.
According to the letter, HIV/AIDS in Chicago is an escalating public health crisis, which has been especially severe in communities of color. People of color account for approximately 69% of the City’s population, but they account for 81% of recently diagnosed adult AIDS cases and 77% of recently diagnosed HIV cases. African-Americans alone account for 65% of recently diagnosed adult AIDS cases and 61% of recently diagnosed adult HIV cases.
‘Male-to-male sexual contact remains the No. 1 mode of transmission,’ AFC stated.
The mayor’s final 2004 budget is set to be released Oct. 15, 2003, and AIDS advocates have received no assurances from the mayor’s office as to whether the mayor will try to increase or cut funding for HIV prevention or keep it at its current level.
More than 50% of the city’s aldermen and alderwomen also signed the letter in support of increased funding.