NCAIDS Year 3 (August 1991-July 1992)
"Housing problems for people with HIV disease arise in a variety of ways. Many individuals are evicted when their HIV status becomes known; most of them are not even aware that this type of discrimination violates federal fair housing law and many state laws. For others, loss of income as a result of illness and inability to work creates an inability to pay the rent or mortgage. Some who are hospitalized find that when they are able to leave the hospital their already unstable living arrangements have fallen apart. Some had no homes before becoming HIV infected and lived on the street; then, too ill to continue to fend for themselves, they shuttle back and forth between shelters and acute-care hospitals. Some children with HIV have spent their entire lives in hospitals because of the lack of adequate housing for them and their parents. Women with children are often excluded from the few residential programs that do exist. The scope of these problems is vast and the solutions are difficult, but there is increasing awareness that the homeless of tomorrow are being created by the failure to provide housing options for thousands of people living with HIV disease today."
The third year of the NCAIDS included hearings on proposals to lower the risk of transmission of bloodborne infection, including HIV, in health care settings; on the impact and ramifications of revised CDC classifications for HIV infection (which affected medical insurance and disability coverage, among other things); housing issues and the HIV epidemic; and communications about HIV/AIDS. A special working group also met to identify the current issues and concerns of religious communities responding to the HIV epidemic, and to discuss the interface between the religious communities' response and the federal government's response. The commission issued three more interim reports: "HIV/AIDS Epidemic in Puerto Rico," (June 1992) examined how the special status of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (which is technically an unincorporated U.S. territory, not a state) excluded its citizens from many federal public health initiatives, despite its many political, economic, and social ties to the U.S.; "Housing and the HIV/AIDS Epidemic," (July 1992) detailed the AIDS housing programs developed in a few states and cities, but also the many ways in which the federal government, particularly the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) had obstructed state and local efforts; and "Preventing HIV Transmission in Health Care Settings," (July 1992) looked at the risks of health care workers acquiring or transmitting HIV, public perceptions of these risks, and improving standard safety protocols; it also discussed other policy proposals, such as mandatory testing of health professionals, which the commission noted would be costly and ineffective. (The commission did not submit a third annual report.) These focused investigations again identified the vast inequities in health care, and the need to improve funding of Medicaid and Medicare and expand their coverage of HIV disease. The reports also made clear the barriers to effective AIDS education across society, the need for more low-income housing, and the need for HIV prevention standards in all health care settings.
Also in the third year, Commissioner Belinda Ann Mason died of AIDS on September 9, 1991. President Bush appointed NBA star Earvin "Magic" Johnson, recently diagnosed with HIV, to her place that November. Johnson would serve until September 24, 1992. Mary Fisher, founder of the Family AIDS Network, would fill his position from November 17, 1992 through the commission's final year.