The city of Dallas has been awarded a $247,000 federal grant for HIV/AIDS prevention and education, according to City Manager Mary Suhm and Councilwoman Angela Hunt, who both called me first thing this morning to relay the happy news.
The grant reportedly is through a federal program called HIRE, which stands for HIV/AIDS Initiative for Re-Entry. Brett Wilkinson, director of intergovernmental services for the city of Dallas, told me last week that this program is geared toward education and prevention among HIV-positive people who are being released from prison.
Hunt said this morning that she was relieved to learn that the city had been awarded the grant given the council’s recent decision to cut $325,000 for HIV/AIDS education and prevention from this year’s budget. City officials have said they applied for the grant in July after it became clear that the budget cuts would take place.
“This is such a relief,” said Hunt, who introduced an unsuccessful budget amendment seeking to reinstate HIV/AIDS funding. “I know this has been such a serious concern to the GLBT community and me and other councilmembers who wanted to ensure that we had HIV/AIDS education/prevention funding. Thanks to the hard work of our city staff, we were able to attain a grant to address the very issues we were most concerned about.”
As I noted in this story last week, there is no guarantee that the grant money will go to the agencies affected by the budget cuts. Steven Pace, executive director of AIDS Interfaith, indicated that the city likely will issue a request for proposals, meaning it will become a competitive process and any agency that meets the criteria can apply.
This is really great news John …
I would highly suggest posting a mailing address and contact infomation that people can send Thank You notes to. I’m sure it would be greatly appreciated and provide additionally clarity to those providing the funding that their action really matters to us all.
Rick,
Contact info for Dallas city councilmembers is posted on the Web site: https://www.dallascityhall.com/government/government.html
OK, I don’t quite understand this. So if you’re HIV pos., you can break the law , go to jail, get meds in jail, come out and get re-educated and re-hired and insurance with the new employer, but if you don’t break the law, you could get laid off, lose your insurance and meds, get no education funds or re-hire programs and die.