More than 8,000 pairs of shoes are laid in the street for the 2005 march called “Walk a Mile in My Shoes” in Washington, DC. Marchers called for more funds for drug assistance to the poor and research on a cure for HIV.

Enactment
Reauthorization
Funding
Administration

Enactment

Between FY 1990 and FY 1991, HRSA spending on HIV/AIDS increased more than 13-fold, from $16.5 million for AIDS Service Demonstration Grants, to $220.6 million for the Ryan White CARE Act as a whole.

Reauthorization

Between 1996, ADAP’s first year, and reauthorization in 2000, program funding increased from $52 million to $528 million. Funding rose another 50 percent in 2006 in a continued commitment to reach all the underserved. In the 2009 reauthorization, funding levels hit an all-time high.

Funding

In 1991, the first year of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program, the Federal budget appropriation was $220.6 million. Today it has grown to more than $2 billion.

Administration

Since 1990, grants under the Ryan White CARE Act have been administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The HIV/AIDS Bureau was created under HRSA in 1997 to streamline the administration of all Ryan White funds.

Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Funding

As AIDS has spread to every corner of the United States, funding for the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program has increased dramatically. Today, the program funds grants to cities, counties, states, and local, community-based organizations in all 50 States, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and five U.S. Pacific territories and associated jurisdictions.

Funding resources have increased every year since enactment. Beginning in fiscal year (FY) 1997, a surge of funding began: The total program budget went from $738.5 million in FY 1996 to $996.3 million in FY 1997, an increase of 35 percent. Highly active antiretroviral therapy was becoming widely available, and Congress and the administration wanted to ensure that this powerful yet costly therapy was accessible to as many low income people living with HIV as possible. Therefore, 65 percent of the FY 1997 increase went to the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program Part B AIDS Drug Assistance Program (ADAP) in each State and territory. By 2002, ADAP became the largest funding category of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program.

During the most recent decade, total Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program funding has remained relatively constant. Learn more about Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program annual appropriations.