A group of housing advocates and physicians in Durham is accusing the city of mismanaging federal funds meant to help people living with HIV and AIDS in the community.
The Coalition to End the HIV Epidemic in Durham, or EHE Coalition, says the city of Durham has mismanaged the Housing Opportunities for Persons with AIDS program, also known as HOPWA, a U.S. Housing and Urban Development program.
Over the last four years, the city has accumulated more than $1.3 million in unspent HOPWA funds without any contractual commitments, according to a city staff memo to the city manager.
"The coalition went and found out there was money just sitting with the City of Durham,” said Carolyn Hinton, director of Healing with CAARE, one of the organizations in the coalition and the city’s first free HIV support and community health clinic.
Money sitting with the city
Since forming in 2023, the EHE Coalition and its members have spoken and met with city staff and council members at various times to call for the money to be used.
The group has issued several proposals – including detailed funding allocation plans – to help the city meet an urgent demand for housing for HIV patients, a particularly vulnerable minority statistically shown to struggle with stable housing.
But in interviews with WUNC News, coalition members say their efforts were met with indifference and bureaucratic inefficiency by the City Manager’s Office and the Housing & Neighborhood Services Department.
“Instead of them being transparent, they’re just continuing to say ‘We know what’s best,’” said Lanea Foster, a co-chair of the EHE Coalition, who previously oversaw homeless prevention work with Durham County for years.
“We have a lot of people who would have been eligible for HOPWA funding, who would have been eligible for rental assistance, for even a hotel room when they were coming out of the hospital or some other place. They could get a down payment for rent. They could get several different things that could have stabilized them,” Foster said.
Few actually received help, reports show
Annual reports filed by the City of Durham evaluating the performance of housing programs and homeless services show few households have actually been helped by the city’s HOPWA program across the five counties they serve.
The City of Durham’s HOPWA program is meant to cover residents across Durham, Orange, Chatham, Granville and Person counties.
Local governments granted federal HUD funding for housing and homeless prevention programs, such as HOPWA, are required to publish reports that evaluate their performance.
- In the 2024-2025 fiscal year, Durham assisted 14 households across their service area with HOPWA long-term rental assistance.
- In the previous fiscal year, nine households received long-term rental assistance, and 41 households received short-term housing assistance.
- In the 2022-2023 fiscal year, 18 households received long-term rental assistance and 35 households received short-term assistance.
In these reports, the city cited a lack of affordable housing units and a lack of landlords that accepted federal housing pay.
The city also cited the closure of Central Piedmont Community Action in 2024, a nonprofit that contracted with the city to run HOPWA services.
The woman who last ran the program there was convicted of fraud in a scheme as the previous director of the Chatham County Housing Authority and was sentenced to 30 months in federal prison, The News & Observer reported.
Issues with the city, and their response
In a November meeting, the city manager’s office told the EHE Coalition that “HOPWA was not a priority” for the Housing & Neighborhood Services Department, according to meeting recordings reviewed by WUNC, provided by the Coalition.
In statements and correspondence with the City Council, the City Manager’s office acknowledged the delays with HOPWA. The office declined an interview with WUNC.
“We understand the importance of stable housing and take seriously our role in administering these federal funds,” city Spokeswoman Amy Blalock said in an email to WUNC. For its part, the city sought to act on the program last year.
In an Oct. 6 City Council meeting, more than $435,000 in HOPWA funds were authorized for the Durham County Department of Social Services for short-term housing assistance and other housing support.
The city also said they’re working with a third-party “HOPWA technical assistance provider” paid by HUD to assist in administration. But the EHE Coalition criticized the city’s choice to give funding to the county – saying it’s going to be more difficult for HIV patients to get the help they need because the county has stricter guidelines, insufficient staffing, and a backlog of services, as they are already tasked with running other housing assistance programs.
Proposals for HOPWA denied
Last year in May, the city put out an official call for proposals for local service providers who could administer HOPWA funds within Durham's service area.
Healing with CAARE applied on behalf of the EHE Coalition, and so did Duke Health’s HIV support program, Duke Partners in Caring.
Months later in September, they found out the city had withdrawn the call for proposals. No HOPWA money was granted. In a response, the city said the applicants lacked “sufficient organizational capacity.”
They also cited delays due to Durham government’s restructuring, which involved the former Community Development Department becoming the current Housing & Neighborhood Services Department.
Both Duke Partners in Care and Healing with CAARE have previously administered HOPWA money.
Durham among top regions in HIV diagnoses
Durham had some of the highest annual rates of HIV and AIDS diagnoses in North Carolina’s counties as of 2024 – the most recent year of statewide data – with higher rates among Black and Latino Americans, according to North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services data.
Roughly 8,000 people live with HIV across Durham’s designated service area, including Wake County, the highest number per region next to the Charlotte metro. About 2,000 people live with HIV in Durham and about 800 live with AIDS; Durham County registered an average HIV diagnosis rate of 22.5 for adults and adolescents from 2020 to 2024, ranked within the top 10 highest rates in the state.
Numerous studies and data show that stable housing is overwhelmingly linked to positive health outcomes for HIV patients. “We're missing the opportunity to save people's lives, to help people rebound on what could be devastating and life-ending,” said Foster, of the EHE Coalition.
“Duke and UNC are amazing research institutions that have done a great amount of work,” she said. “However, all the treatment in the world doesn't make a difference if someone is living on the street.”
Durham’s long role in the fight against HIV/AIDS
Durham played an important role in the early years of the fight against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Doctors at Duke University Hospital were among the first in the world to treat the virus in the 1980s.
By the 1990s, patients were traveling to the Bull City from around the country for its renowned treatment that improved the conditions of patients. There was a gap in care, however, that needed to be filled by organizations on the ground.
“Not only did they have HIV, but they had heart problems, they had diabetes, they had other conditions that needed management,” said Carolyn Hinton, of Healing with CAARE.
Healing with CAARE was founded in 1993 by Hinton’s late older sisters, Dr. Sharon Elliott Bynum – remembered as Durham’s “Mother Theresa” – and Patricia Elliott Amoechi, also revered for her community health work.
“We felt needed in the community,” Hinton said. “It was important to us to link them with the necessary services that they could get …financial services and housing, just as we’re still trying to do today.”
In the time spent going back and forth with the city, Hinton says she’s had to turn away patients seeking housing support due to a lack of funding.
