Judge Orders New York City to Provide ‘Medically Appropriate’ Housing for Homeless People With AIDS

Judge Eileen Bransten on Thursday ordered New York City to provide "medically appropriate" housing to homeless people with AIDS who argued that the city placed them in housing conditions detrimental to their health, the Associated Press reports. City law requires the city to provide housing to homeless people with AIDS. In November 2001, seven homeless people filed a complaint stating that the city was placing them in hotel rooms that "lacked heat, hot water and electricity." Bransten ruled that such housing "is not suitable for healthy individuals, much less for persons with severely compromised immune systems." The city plans to appeal the ruling (Associated Press, 9/14). New York City has come under fire before for failing to provide adequate housing services for people with HIV/AIDS. In September 2000, federal District Judge Sterling Johnson ruled that New York City's Division of AIDS Services and Income Support "routinely subjected" the 27,000 people who use its services to "chronically and systematically" late benefits, including housing subsidies, Medicaid, emergency housing allotments and other benefits (Kaiser Daily HIV/AIDS Report, 12/20/01).