The Trump Administration’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget (FY26) released late last week, if enacted, threatens a rise in new HIV diagnoses and moves the country backwards in the fight to end the HIV epidemic by 2030.  

The president’s budget proposes the complete elimination of HIV prevention funding within the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and effectively ends the Housing Opportunities for Persons With AIDS (HOPWA) program. The resulting cuts from these two areas amount to over $1.3 billion in cuts to HIV prevention and housing ($793.7 million and $532 million, respectively).  

The budget also proposes moving Ending the HIV Epidemic initiative’s (EhE) HIV prevention activities to a newly formed department - Administration for Healthy America - but it remains unclear how this would be implemented if there is no other funding for HIV prevention. Additional proposed cuts include the elimination of Part F of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, which includes the AIDS Education & Training Centers responsible for public health workforce development around HIV and other infectious diseases, as well as the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Dental Program, and the Special Projects of National Significance (SPNS). This elimination would result in an additional $77 million cut. Beyond the proposed cut to Part F, the majority of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS program remains flat funded, when compared to FY25 appropriations. The President’s budget also eliminates all Minority AIDS Initiative funding, a $179.3 million cut when compared to FY25. 

The proposed cuts to HIV prevention funding would significantly damage the ability of state and local health departments, and the community-based organizations they partner with, to combat the HIV epidemic in their jurisdictions, including here in Illinois, in Chicago and in Cook County (Cook County is an EHE Jurisdiction). The direct impact of this proposed cut in Illinois would be an $18 million cut to CDC HIV Prevention funding allocated to the Illinois and Chicago Departments of Public Health. Health departments are critical to HIV prevention, coordinating federal, state, and local public health programs and policies. Their work is crucial to ultimately achieving an end to the HIV epidemic by 2030, which means a reduction in new HIV diagnosis and the number of people living with HIV not in care to less than 100 annually. Moreover, the Foundation for AIDS Research, amFAR, estimates that the cuts to HIV Prevention funding alone could cause an additional 144,000 new HIV diagnoses, 15,000 deaths, and 128,000 more people living with HIV in the U.S. by 2030.  Strikingly, amFAR projects that eliminating this annual $1.3 billion in HIV prevention funding would incur $60.3 billion in additional costs to the U.S. health care system by 2030. 

In addition, the complete elimination of HOPWA, a program created in 1992 and administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), goes against decades of on-the-ground and data-driven learnings showing housing is health care. HIV is a transmittable virus that still affects 1.2 million Americans, and we know that the prevalence of HIV is 16 times higher for those who are experiencing homelessness or are unstably housed, when compared to those who have stable housing. The elimination of HOPWA and proposal to shift people living with HIV who are currently in HOPWA housing to time-limited Emergency Shelter Grants (ESG) will inevitably result in an overall increase in homelessness, an increase in homelessness or housing instability in people living with HIV, and ultimately an increase in new HIV diagnosis.  

AIDS Foundation Chicago (AFC) is grateful to our Illinois champions in Congress – including Senators Durbin and Duckworth and Representatives Quigley, Kelly, Ramirez as well as all 14 Democrats representing IL in the U.S. House - who continue to make their voice heard in defense of all HIV and related programs and services, including HIV Prevention and HOPWA. We will continue to advocate and fight back, lifting up the devastation and cruelness of these proposed cuts. Join us by lifting up your own voice and taking action here.