AIDS funding shift to rural areas will hurt N.J. agencies

New Jersey agencies have spent more than a decade building a network to provide the state's neediest AIDS and HIV patients with a wide range of services, including help paying rent, transportation to medical appointments and legal services.

But in a matter of months, advocates say, much of that network will evaporate as the state loses millions of dollars in federal funding.


Bergen and Passaic counties estimate they will lose 41 percent of their funding, dropping from $3.6 million to $2.1 million this year. The cuts will affect 20 agencies locally, which together served 2,000 people with AIDS or HIV last year.

"This is devastating," said Steve Scheuermann, chairman of the Paterson-Passaic County-Bergen County HIV Health Services Planning Council. "We're going to be pushed back to where we were 10, 15 years ago."

The money is being lost because of changes Congress made in December to the Ryan White CARE Act, the main source of federal funding for fighting HIV/AIDS. Lawmakers added five metropolitan areas to the list of those receiving funding, with the intent of shifting more money to rural communities affected by the disease.

Overall funding remained virtually unchanged, however, so with more communities drawing on the same sum, dozens will be hit with massive cuts.

Experts estimate New Jersey, which has the fifth-highest number of HIV/AIDS cases in the country, could lose as much as $27 million in Ryan White funding at the local level over the next three years.

Although Ryan White funding targets the neediest patients -- including the homeless, drug-addicted and mentally ill -- the budget cuts will have much broader impacts, warn advocates including Scheuermann, who also serves as executive director of Buddies of New Jersey, a non-profit HIV/AIDS resource center.