What We Do

Comprehensive Rights for People Affected by HIV/AIDS

The HIV/AIDS epidemic wreaks particularly deep hardship in Brooklyn's low-income communities, where there is limited access to desperately needed health and social services. Discrimination hits particularly hard against people without the resources to assert their legal and human rights. Brooklyn currently has the third-largest concentration in the U.S. of people living with HIV/AIDS, surpassed on by Manhattan and Los Angeles. And in Brooklyn, two-thirds of the men living with HIV/AIDS and three-quarters of the women live in neighborhoods that Brooklyn A serves.

Brooklyn A's Comprehensive Rights Unit (CRU) is headed by David Bryan, Managing Attorney in our Bushwick office. The CRU collaborates with local hospitals, community-based organizations, referral agencies, food banks, and housing providers to meet our clients' needs. Our attorneys hold biweekly intake hours at Woodhull and Kings County Hospitals, and provide monthly advocacy training sessions for HIV/AIDS service and care providers.

The CRU works to ensure that clients receive all of the resources they are entitled to through the HIV/AIDS Service Administration's fair hearing process. When necessary, our attorneys represent clients in "Article 78" proceedings in Kings County Supreme Court to challenge unfair decisions by government agencies. We also represent clients at administrative hearings addressing Supplemental Security Income benefits.

Brooklyn A also challenges discrimination in housing and employment based on HIV/AIDS status. We negotiate with landlords to secure the provision of basic housing needs, such as heat and electricity, and to stop harassment aimed at driving out tenants in order to take advantage of neighborhood gentrification. If negotiations fail, we take the offending landlords to housing court on behalf of our clients. The CRU helps sustain families by protecting clients against domestic violence, developing healthcare proxies and living wills, and creating guardianship and custody plans for clients' children.