Arkansas will use federal housing funds for ADAP

Health officials in Arkansas have scrapped plans to cut as many as 100 people from the state's AIDS Drug Assistance Program because of budgetary problems and will instead use $390,000 in unused money from a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant for the drug program, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports. The health department discovered the unused funds in the state's 2003 allocation from HUD's Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS program. Although there are about 50 HIV-positive people on a waiting list for state housing help, health officials decided to shift the extra funds to ADAP to avoid having to stop providing lifesaving medications to low-income HIV-positive people. Despite the influx of federal housing money, the state's ADAP will still have about 30 people on a waiting list, has stopped providing two drugs, and has tightened financial eligibility requirements to help compensate for continued projected budget deficits, according to Jerry Jones, head of the state health department's infectious disease unit.