By Mike Rifkin
The AIDS Committee of Ottawa could lose some of its funding if the provincial government goes ahead with its current plan to consolidate AIDS services in cities across the province.
Gord Asmus, a committee member, says the committee has been told its funding is secure for now, but there is a possability that some of it may be re-allocated to other services.
The AIDS Bureau, part of the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, is conducting public consultation in hopes of setting up local service plans in a dozen cities around the province.
“The AIDS Bureau has stated clearly that it’s not a decrease in funding,” says Asmus. “It’s possibly a redistribution of funds within the city.”
The committee currently gets most of the provincial AIDS money in Ottawa, which Asmus says makes it a possible target for a funding reduction.
Last fall, the ACO lost its $600,000 funding from the federal government. That money had been used for HIV/AIDS prevention advocacy, which the committee no longer does because of the lost funding.
The ACO also receives nearly $50,000 from the City of Ottawa for the Living Room, a drop-in shelter for people with HIV/AIDS. Asmus says he hopes this money won’t be cut.
The province’s proposed local service plans would create organizations across the province similar to the Ottawa-Carleton Council on AIDS, says council chair Ron Chaplin.
The council is currently an informal coalition of the city’s more than two dozen AIDS agencies. It acts mostly as an information-sharing body. Chaplin says the council occasionally strikes ad hoc committees to make proposals if services are needed.
If the province’s plan goes through, the council could be used as a consolidation model for Ottawa.
Chaplin says the servive plan would look for gaps in services and make the necessary changes. The gaps that have already been identified in Ottawa are outreach programs for recent immigrants and Aboriginal people with HIV/AIDS, as well as those in the sex trade.
Chaplin says a new service plan would also look at any service overlaps. For example, the city currently has two drop-in shelters for people with HIV/AIDS. The amalgamation of the two shelters is an issue that could possibly be addressed, says Chaplin.
“What we need to encourage is more co-operation of activities among different organizations,” says Asmus.
Because Ottawa already has the Ottawa Carleton Council on AIDS, it is a step ahead of other Ontario cities in terms of consolidation of services, he says.
“Ottawa is ahead of everyone,” he says. “[OCCA] is already up and going. We’re ahead of the game a bit.”