HIV/AIDS Advocates Criticize New York City Mayor’s Lack of Plan on HIV-Positive Homeless Population

HIV/AIDS advocates on Sunday, World AIDS Day, "slamm[ed]" New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (R) for "ignoring exploding numbers" of HIV-positive homeless individuals in the city, the New York Daily News reports. According to the Daily News, the number of homeless people with AIDS receiving shelter in the city increased 18% during the first nine months of Bloomberg's administration. Bloomberg last week sponsored a breakfast to commemorate World AIDS Day and said he would do "everything I possibly can" to fight HIV/AIDS but did not present "any real plan" to fight the disease in the city, Joe Pressley, executive director of the New York AIDS Coalition, said. "I don't know how you can be mayor in the year 2002 and not talk publicly about AIDS and have a strategy," Gina Quattrochi, executive director of Bailey House, which provides shelter for homeless people with AIDS, said, adding, "To me, it says AIDS is not his priority." Jennifer Flynn, executive director of NYC AIDS Housing Network, said that Bloomberg's lack of a plan is a "huge failing." Deputy Mayor Dennis Walcott on Sunday said that Bloomberg has a "very strong commitment to addressing" the city's HIV-positive homeless population and added that a "more developed plan" would be announced in the "near future," according to the Daily News. Approximately 48,000 individuals living in New York City have AIDS and "tens of thousands" more are HIV-positive, according to health officials (Saul, New York Daily News, 12/1).