Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told Congress in February that budget reductions at the Centers for Disease Control would translate into 424,000 fewer HIV tests conducted nationwide, which receive grants for prevention measures. Cuts to the Ryan White program, named after the teenager who contracted AIDS from a blood transfusion in the 1980s and died, could trigger wait lists for HIV medications, Sebelius said.
“If we divest from AIDS research at this crucial time, we’re really shooting ourselves in the foot, in terms of squandering the epidemic with a cure and a vaccine,” said Chris Collins, vice president and director of public policy at AmFAR, a New York-based nonprofit group that supports AIDS research. “There’s no question that the impact will be felt, and it will damage scientific research and damage this country’s edge on scientific research.”
Even groups that have secured funding for current operations said the era of federal austerity will eventually have a negative impact on their programs.
‘Hidden Secret’
At America Works, a New York-based group that is one of the nation’s largest providers of employment services to homeless veterans, officials said they depend on Labor Department grants to help them provide job-hunting help to 450 clients a year. Their high rate of job placement in New York, Washington and Chicago may protect current programs, said Lee Bowes, chief executive officer.
At the same time, hopes for an added grant to help another 75 people in Washington is “probably off the table,” Bowes said. Returning troops need the help: The unemployment rate for male veterans aged 25 to 34 was 10.4 percent in 2012, compared with an 8.1 percent rate for their nonveteran counterparts, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said last month.
“Every employer we’re working with wants to give back by hiring veterans,” Bowes said. “If they don’t have a point of access and you can’t find them, they disappear and become a hidden secret.”
Brian Jackson, a retired U.S. Navy veteran, was evicted from his Arlington, Virginia, apartment in February after he lost his job with a contractor of office supplies for the State Department.
Unable to find a job, Jackson, 29, who served from 2004 to 2011, turned to America Works for help. He said the group has arranged four interviews.
“There are so many unemployed veterans,” Jackson said. “For somebody who has fought for their country and served in active duty overseas, to come back to America and not be able to find an stable job, that’s just sad.”