The United States Department of Health and Human Services awarded $2,297,203 in grant money to the Paterson health department on Friday to fight HIV/AIDS in Passaic and Bergen counties, according to Rep. Bill Pascrell.
Grant money from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program will help hundreds of individuals in Paterson, Passaic and Bergen counties living with HIV/AIDS by providing medical, dental, mental health, case management, transportation, housing assistance, food, and legal services.
“This funding will help people in Paterson and across North Jersey who are living with HIV/AIDS. New Jersey has the fifth-largest population of residents living with HIV/AIDS in the country,” Pascrell said. “This essential funding ensures that people living with HIV/AIDS have the health care and other services they need to continue to work, go to school, and be healthy, productive members of their communities.”
During the early years of the Ryan White Program, the congressman served as chairman of the Paterson-Passaic-Bergen HIV Planning Council when he was the mayor of Paterson. The program works with cities, states, and community organizations to provide HIV-related services to half million people without sufficient health care coverage or financial means to cope with the disease each year.
The program Ryan White, a boy diagnosed with AIDS at the age of 13, and died at age 18.