On Friday, April 3, the Trump administration released its Fiscal Year 2027 discretionary budget. In budgeting, it’s often said that you “shouldn’t tell me where your priorities are. Show me where you spend your money and I’ll tell you what they are.”  In his FY2027 proposed budget, President Trump has shown yet again that his administration isn’t prioritizing ending the HIV epidemic. Moreover, the President’s proposed budget shows that he doesn’t value the most marginalized in our communities – including people impacted by HIV and homelessness.  If enacted as proposed, the President’s budget would dismantle our public health systems and social safety net, increase the number of new HIV diagnoses and homelessness, and leave our communities broken and hopeless.   

The President’s FY27 proposed budget is a disastrous retread of last year’s spending priorities that were rebuked by Congressional Democrats and Republicans alike. This year’s budget once again proposes to create a new department–Administration for Healthy America—while restructuring the functions of the Ryan White program and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative’s (EHE), among others. Listed below are some of the most glaring cuts from the President’s FY27 Budget: 

  • Elimination of the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) program ($529 million) 
  • Elimination of all $755.6 million of CDC’s core HIV prevention funding
  • Elimination of Part F of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which includes the AIDS Education & Training Centers responsible for public health workforce development around HIV and other infectious diseases, as well as the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Dental Program, and the Special Projects of National Significance (SPNS) ($74 million)
  • Eliminates all Minority AIDS Initiative funding ($56 million) 
  • Cuts to the National Institutes of Health, including $1.8 billion in cuts to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases ($5 million) 

And if these harmful proposed cuts weren’t enough, the Trump administration also decided to name AIDS Foundation Chicago in its FY27 budget as “a far-left nonprofit” organization that “peddle[s] divisive, woke identity politics” and has “embedded discriminatory racial equity principles in its hiring process.”  AIDS Foundation Chicago stands firm in our values, rooted in community, and resolved to meaningfully address the syndemics of HIV and homelessness. AFC has followed all relevant laws in our hiring practices and will continue to do so. This rhetoric from the Trump administration is a smokescreen to distract from their efforts to slash social safety net programs that benefit all of us in order to give tax breaks to billionaires, fund the disappearing of our immigrant neighbors through ICE, and pay for their war in Iran.  

Supporting the health and well-being of people living with HIV and prudent public health investments like HOPWA and Ryan White have enjoyed bipartisan support for decades, and just last year the Republican-controlled Congress increased HOPWA funding.  That’s because research has demonstrated time and again that stable housing improves the health of individuals and communities. The federal government’s own data shows that people in the HOPWA program have better health outcomes than their low-income peers, making the HOPWA program an essential tool in the fight to end the HIV epidemic.   

As a non-partisan 501 (c) 3 nonprofit working to improve quality of life for people living with and vulnerable to HIV and homelessness, AFC will continue our federal advocacy to fight back against these proposed cuts.  No budget or executive order will stop that. EVER.  

Without question, President Trump’s proposed FY27 budget will lead to more HIV transmissions, preventable deaths, increased homelessness, and will gut our decades-long investments to end the HIV epidemic. As we have done for over forty years, AFC is proud to stand shoulder to shoulder with the communities disproportionately impacted by HIV and homelessness to push back on these disastrous proposed budget cuts. Later this year, we will commemorate the 45th anniversary of the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. And just like in those days, we can’t do this work alone! We need you to stand up and fight back! We’ll get through this as we’ve always done – TOGETHER!