On December 1, 2008 Dr. Vergeront sent a letter to Karen Dotson, Executive Director of AIDS Network  wherein he stated that “In this environment, the social service model under which AIDS Network is currently operating may not be sustainable”

Fifteen months later, the question needs to be asked— What has changed?

We agreed with Dr. Vergeront’s assessment then and we maintain that ANY AIDS service organization or community based organization that builds their programs and service offerings around psychosocial case management services is destined to fail.

Back to Dr. Vergeront’s December 1, 2008 statement:  What’s changed at AIDS Network in the area of psychsocial case management services?  Virtually nothing:

• Karen Dotson promoted attorney Daniel Guinn to oversee client services; the biggest service being psychosocial case management.
• For the period ending 3/31/2010 (Ryan White) and 6/30/2010 (Life Care Services) AIDS Network will receive a total of $903,188.00 in state and federal grants.  $589,965.00 will fund psychosocial case management costs. That amounts to 65.3 percent of state and federal grant funds received by AIDS Network for psychosocial case management costs

It’s been 15 months since Dr. Vergeront’s admonition that the social service model under which the agency is operating may not be sustainable, yet funding continues to flow into an broken and overfunded psychosocial case management system

For comparison purposes:

• ARCW reviews a total of $9,281,843 in state and federal HIV/AIDS grants.  There combined total of medical and psychosocial case management costs account for 19.7 percent of their state and federal grants.
  
• UW’s HIV Clinic receives a total of $623,974.00 in Ryan White Part C grant funds.  Case management costs account for 12.5 percent of the total received.

It’s clear that nothing has changed.  State and Federal grant funds are funding AIDS Network’s case management system at a level that is scandalous.