Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms says that she wouldn’t be opposed to a state takeover of the city’s management of a $23 million federal grant that subsidizes housing payments for people living with HIV/AIDS.
“If the state has a better process for how we deal with this program I will not be opposed to anyone assisting or taking over,” Bottoms told the City Council during a teleconference update on COVID-19 on Thursday.
Bottoms statement follows a letter that five leading advocates for people living HIV/AIDS in Georgia sent the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development accusing Bottoms' administration of malfeasance, negligence, and unethical behavior resulting in potentially lost lives.
The letter asked HUD to take the extraordinary step of terminating the city’s grant and have those funds administered through the state’s Department of Community Affairs.
The grant, formally known as Housing Opportunities to Persons With AIDS, serves as a lifeline to low-income people with the disease.
The driving theory of the program is that providing stable homes to a vulnerable population helps prevent the transmission of the disease. Without the stress of finding a place to sleep each night, people living with HIV/AIDS can better focus on obtaining jobs that offer health care, visiting the doctor and having a place to store their medication.
Under the HOPWA grant, the city is supposed to disperse $23 million a year to agencies who coordinate housing for 2,300 households in 29 metro Atlanta counties.
But for years, the city has severely delayed disbursements to the nonprofits who coordinate housing arrangements and other care for patients and their families, and tens of millions of the dollars have gone unspent.
HUD has already threatened to terminate Atlanta's award after an investigation last year revealed chronic mismanagement, a persistent lack of financial controls and an inability to adhere to the federal grant guidelines, according to a February letter from HUD to the city.
A spokesperson for the Department of Community Affairs declined to answer a question about whether the department would be willing to administer the city’s award. HUD already awards roughly $3.4 million annually in HOPWA funds to 12 regional service providers in a 125-county area.
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