Housing Works Inc.

Housing Works stands in solidarity with the immigrant detainees on hunger strike at Delaney Hall Detention Center in New Jersey, who are protesting dangerous conditions and denial of medical care.

The violent attacks by federal ICE agents against protesters, elected officials, and families of detainees is unjust, unconstitutional, and deeply disturbing.

We urge our elected officials to fully defund ICE and end this campaign of terror against our communities.

🔗 Take Action at: bit.ly/ICEOUT_NYC

For decades, Medicaid and public health insurance have helped New Yorkers stay healthy, access lifesaving care, and avoid devastating medical debt. These programs are essential to our community's health. And the Trump Administration is forcefully trying to undo that.

We cannot allow decades of progress to be undone. We thank NYC's Board of Health for urgently calling on leaders at every level of government to reject policies that strip people of care, protect Medicaid, and defend affordable health coverage for all New Yorkers. Together we can still act to make sure Congress keeps our healthcare system safe by calling our Congress members and demanding that they restore Medicaid funding, renew tax credits, and protect New Yorkers’ healthcare.

🔗 Take action at the link in our bio and tell your member of congress to protect Medicaid.

We have positions open in IT, admin, health services, retail and more! Be part of a mission-driven organization advocating for social justice, with competitive benefits, healthcare coverage, and generous PTO!

👉To apply today, visit housingworks.org/careers.

ACTION ALERT: We’re coming together to protect free speech, urge legislators to recognize the critical importance of HIV housing, hold police accountable, support incarcerated folks, and fight for a Hep Free NYC.

👉05/12: Communities Not Cages (CNC) Legislative Day in Albany
Please join Housing Works & Communities Not Cages (CNC) coalition for there advocacy lobby day of 2026. Food and transportation provided.
📍Albany, New York

👉 05/14: Stand With The Family of Allen Feliz
Show up to court to support Allan’s family!
📍City Hall (across 250 Broadway)

👉 05/19: 7th Annual Hep Free NYC Awareness Event
Demonstrate our City Council members how important it is that they defend Hep B and C prevention, care and treatment services to New Yorkers.
📍City Hall Steps

📣 Get action alerts to your inbox: https://linktr.ee/housingworksnyc

We are incredibly saddened by the passing of visionary leader, organizer, and advocate Kiara St. James.

Kiara’s journey with Housing Works began as an employee at the thrift shop donation warehouse in Queens while developing the advocacy skills that would shape her into a respected organizer, a leader, and national voice for transgender rights.

A fierce advocate, compassionate leader, and brilliant historian, as a peer and staffer, Kiara transformed countless lives across New York State and beyond. With those qualities, she spearheaded and led to the incorporation of the now renown New York Transgender Advocacy Group (NYTAG). She played a critical role in the passage of the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act and more. She fought for safe housing, HIV prevention and treatment access, affirming healthcare, equity and economic justice for Black and Brown people, Transgender, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming communities and so much more.

Her work was rooted not only in survival, but in self-empowerment, love and the unmoving belief that transgender people deserve to be unapologetically who they are. Kiara favored spirituality, healing, community care and justice, building a movement grounded in resilience.

We stand in solidarity with her family, loved ones, colleagues, and the New York Transgender Advocacy Group community as we all mourn her loss together.

Rest in power, Kiara. You will be remembered. 🕊️

With love,
Valerie Reyes-Jimenez, NYC Community Organizer
Housing Works Staff and Community

This Mother’s Day, we honor mothers who are too often denied safety and support: moms living with HIV, unhoused moms, moms who use drugs, moms relying on SNAP and Medicaid, and chosen mothers who love us when others couldn’t.

As federal cuts to SNAP, Medicaid, and critical safety‑net programs threaten families and deepen inequality, low-income families are among those most deeply impacted.

Let’s make our mothers proud and remain committed to harnessing the collective power of our community—through relentless advocacy—to fight for justice for all.

💐 Who are you giving a bouquet to this Mother's Day?

Yesterday, our End AIDS NY Community Coalition joined members of the New York State Senate and Assembly to call for , and to include language in New York's FY2026-27 Budget that would help end homelessness among low-income New Yorkers living with HIV by expanding equitable access to an existing public assistance HIV Emergency Shelter Allowance program that is currently available only to residents of New York City.

It is critical for NYS to step up with cost-effective housing investments to promote health equity through safe, stable housing for New Yorkers with HIV, no matter where in the State they live.

Thank you to & for your continued commitment to making sure all of New York has equitable access to HIV rental assistance.

Go to our Linktree & Urge NYS Legislative Leaders to Include HIV Housing for All in the budget. Thank you!

What really happened after Trump slashed HIV funding? the explores the impacts of slashing PEPFAR, here's what they found.

Across nine countries, 3.4 million fewer people were tested for HIV in just the first half of 2025, according to one report.

With the dismantle of the US foreign aid, much of the program’s prevention and outreach work remained off-limits. The data show that fewer people were tested for HIV, fewer people newly started treatment, and far fewer started or stayed on PrEP, the drugs that help prevent infection in the first place.

“A lot of what those staff were doing was outreach, getting to the harder-to-reach groups,” said Charles Kenny, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development who has been tracking the PEPFAR data. Most of what PEPFAR does, he said, is not just moving drugs. “The drugs are obviously absolutely essential, but it’s the system making sure that they reach where they need to go.”

📣 Take action today: https://actionnetwork.org/events/spend-the-money-now-dc-pepfar-rally

📷: Kris Ward