President Barack Obama’s FY 2015 budget includes LGBT funding
The President’s Budget provides a roadmap for accelerating economic growth, expanding opportunity for all Americans, and ensuring fiscal responsibility. It invests in infrastructure, job training, preschool, and pro-work tax cuts, while reducing deficits through health, tax, and immigration reform.
According to the White House, the budget supports and expands opportunity for the LGBT community by:
Expanding Access to Health Coverage. The Affordable Care Act ensures that Americans have secure, stable, and affordable insurance. As of January Insurance companies are no longer able to discriminate against consumers due to pre-existing conditions, and because of the law, insurers can no longer turn someone away just because he or she is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.
Addressing Health Care Disparities. The Budget supports community effort to focus on prevention, including using evidence-based interventions to address tobacco control, obesity prevention, and better nutrition and physical activity. The Budget also invests in expanding the health care workforce, as well as investing in community health centers to provide primary care services in communities across the country. And continuing efforts to improve data collection on health disparities will help policymakers have the knowledge and tools they need to continue to address the health needs and concerns of the LGBT community.
Civil Rights Enforcement and Hate Crime Prevention. The Budget supports activities at the Department of Justice to ensure the protection of civil rights. The Budget provides additional resources for the Department of Justice Community Relations Service (CRS) to respond to alleged hate crimes on the basis of race, color, or national origin, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, religion, or disability.
Improving Access to Services under the Violence Against Women Act. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), signed by President Obama in 2013, prohibits discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in VAWA funded programs and improves access to services in the STOP grant program. The Budget includes $423 million in Department of Justice Office on Violence Against Women grants and assistance to support victims of violence, including LGBT victims of domestic violence.
Continuing Progress Toward Ending Homelessness. The Budget provides $2.4 billion for the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Homeless Assistance Grants, $301 million above the 2014 enacted level. This funding supports new permanent supportive housing units and maintains over 330,000 HUD-funded beds that assist the homeless Nationwide. Through this investment as well as collaborative partnerships with local governments, non-profit organizations, and among Federal agencies, the Administration will continue to make progress towards the President’s ambitious goals to end homelessness across the country. To advance the goal of ending youth homelessness by 2020, Federal agencies have partnered to develop and promote a research-informed framework that focuses on improving data quality and improving service capacity to support highly vulnerable homeless youth, including LGBTQ youth, youth involved in the foster care or juvenile justice systems, and pregnant and parenting youth.
Expanding Access to HIV/AIDS Treatment, Care, and Prevention. The Budget expands access to HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment activities and supports the goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and HIV Care Continuum Initiative to reduce HIV incidence, increase access to care, and reduce HIV-related health disparities. The Budget invests $2.3 billion in the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program to provide treatment and care completion services for people living with HIV, which includes $900 million for the AIDS Drug Assistance Program to ensure that people living with HIV have access to life-saving antiretroviral medications. The Budget also invests $1.1 billion for CDC HIV/AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Tuberculosis, and Viral Hepatitis activities, and aligns HIV funding with the epidemic by requiring public health departments to target resources where the epidemic is most concentrated.
Supporting Housing Assistance for People Living with HIV/AIDS. The Budget provides $332 million for HUD’s Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS (HOPWA) program to address housing needs among people living with HIV/AIDS and their families. The program provides States and localities with the resources to create comprehensive strategies for providing housing assistance that gives patients the stability needed for effective treatment. In partnership with Federal agencies through the HIV Care Continuum, HUD is working to improve outcomes that promote greater achievements in viral suppression through the coordination and alignment of housing support with medical care.
