Testimony on the 2004 Preliminary Budget of the City of Chicago

August 28, 2003

Good evening. My name is Brent Adams, and I am a policy associate for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago.

The AIDS Foundation of Chicago is Illinois' leading advocate for people living with and at risk for HIV and is the largest single source of philanthropic support for AIDS programs in the Midwest. This year, we awarded nearly $1.2 million to community-based organizations. We also provide funding, training, and support to more than 150 case managers in 59 different agencies; these case managers, in turn, serve some 6,000 men, women, and children living with HIV.

In January of this year, the AIDS Foundation launched a campaign to increase city funding for HIV prevention by $1 million. This increase is long overdue and desperately needed.

Since 1997, the City's funding for HIV prevention has decreased 8% -- from nearly $4 million to $3.6 million - while the City's reported number of AIDS cases has increased 32% -- from 15,441 to 20,480. Chicago broke the 20,000 cases mark this year. Of the over 20,000 Chicagoans who have been reported with AIDS, only 8,930 of them are still alive. 11,550 people in Chicago are reported to have died of AIDS.

Put simply, while the epidemic has worsened, the amount of city funds devoted to fight the epidemic has lessened.

People of color have borne much of the brunt of this city's worsening epidemic. African-Americans in particular, who account for 36% of the City's population, account for 65% of recently diagnosed adult AIDS cases and 61% of recently diagnosed adult HIV cases.

The unabated spread of HIV through our city amounts to nothing less than a public health emergency, and the City must take action to address it. The City cannot rely on the federal or state government. A new initiative by the Centers for Disease Control, announced in April 2003, could result in the Chicago metropolitan area losing more than $2 million in federal funds for HIV prevention activities, and this year the governor vetoed a $1 million increase in HIV prevention funding for communities of color.

Against this backdrop, HIV continues to exact a heavy toll on individual lives, even with the remarkable advances in treatment that have been made over the last several years. The estimated lifetime cost of care and treatment for just one individual with HIV is nearly $200,000. And the disease and its treatments come with a wide and unrelenting array of physical and mental side effects and symptoms.

Now there is no question that these are difficult economic times, but in bad economic times, our commitment to public health must move to the forefront, not be put on the back burner. It is at these times that those in our city who are most vulnerable need more care, not less. So even as Chicago's economic situation worsens, our resolve to fight for a full $1 million increase strengthens. In May, a majority of the City Council echoed our call for a $1 million increase, observing in a letter to Mayor Daley that "the City's HIV/AIDS crisis . . . will not wait until economic conditions improve."

There are people in this city at risk for HIV who, without this increase, will become infected; many will get sick, and some will die. Matters of life and death ought always to be top budgetary priorities, no matter the fiscal challenges.

The lives of men, women, and children in Chicago are at stake. Please act now to help save them by increasing city funding for HIV prevention by $1 million.

City funding campaign