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Aids

The Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) Program was the first program of its kind that was established to address the growing needs for housing for homeless persons, low-income individuals, as well as families that have been affected by the HIV/AIDS Virus (HUD, 2003). The significance of this study is to show the extent to which the HOPWA Program has in fact fulfilled its mandate by Congress to provide assistance to families, homeless persons and low-income persons living with HIV/AIDS.

Review of Literature
HOPWA Program was designed to provide housing assistance as the annual output measure; and to collect client information demonstrating the outcome for improved housing stability for the special needs population (HUD, 2003). In addition, HOPWA also makes grants to local communities, states, and nonprofit organizations to provide housing assistance and support services to low-income population with HIV/AIDS and their families (HUD, 2006). The funding request for the program is need-driven and reflects the department mission for providing permanent housing assistance to the populations who has very low-income and living with symptomatic HIV/AIDS, who also face chronic homeless and other challenges (Kingsley, 2007).

Studies show over 90 percent of HOPWA funds is distributed according to the number of people living with HIV/AIDS within a state or community (Ramirez, 2006). HOPWA funding is integrated into the overall federal response to the population living with HIV/AIDS (Swindell, 2007). Recently, HUD united with the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and other federal agencies on a range of projects to promote better housing, health care, and other support services to those individuals living with HIV/AIDS (Saul, 2007).

Results
The U.S. federal government has made available over $2.3 billion in HOPWA budgets to support communities to establish and operate HIV/AIDS housing (Bruce, 2001). The U.S. Department of Housing and...