Every Monday, Maurine Gentis, a retired teacher, expects meals on the southern wheels.
“Meals help stretch my budget,” Mrs. Gentis, 77, said. Living alone and in a wheelchair, he appreciates looking at her regularly. The same group, a non -profit organization, offers books from the library and dry food for your cat.
But Mrs. Gentis is anxious for what is coming. The small government agency responsible for supervising programs such as Meals On Wheels is dismantling as part of the Trump administration’s review of the Department of Health and Human Services of the United States. Approximately half of its staff have been fired in recent dismissals and its 10 regional offices are closed, according to several employees who lost their work.
“I’m worried about only the son that all this can go for the drain too,” Gentis said.
In the search for President Trump to put an end to what were called “illegal and immoral discrimination programs”, one of his executive orders promised to take energetic measures in federal efforts to improve accessibility and representation for people with disabilities, with which the rabbit the potentially problematic sealing. Certain research studies are no longer financing, and many government health employees who specialize in disability issues have been fired.
The agency’s writing, the community’s life administration, is part of the long -range cuts planned in the HHS under the Trump administration proposition budget.
Although some federal funds can continue until September, the end of the government fiscal year and some workers have been temporarily called, there is significant uncertainty about the future. And some groups report delays in receiving the expected federal funds.
“There is a lot of confusion,” said Becky Yanni, executive director of the Aging Council in St. Johns County in Florida. She said Bone has said that the most recent financing for her Meals On Wheels and other services program could be late.
If the financing does not arrive, “in many communities, it will seek cuts in the services,” Sid Sandy Markwood, Executive Director of Use, who rebukes the network or agencies of areas of aging.
The community experience division helps coordinate services and provide funds for major and disabled Americans so that they can stay at home instead of living in an elderly home. With a budget of $ 2.6 billion, the unit represents a tiny fraction or total HHS expense.
According to the reorganization introduced by the Secretary of Health Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the responsibilities of the Community Unit will be divided between the Ohin agencies, including Centers for Medicare and the Administration for Children and Families.
“This consolidation allows the department to better meet the current health needs of vulnerable populations throughout the country,” said an HHS spokeswoman in a statement. “This does not affect the important work of these critical programs, since it will continue in other places within the HHS”
Until now, several programs under the unit will be eliminated under the proposed budget, including one that provides the people in elderly homes, to help guarantee the safety and well -being of residents and breathing care programs, to provide a break. The states would also have more freedom to determine where funds should be assigned.
In addition to food deliveries, the Community Life Agency supports numerous programs, including non -profit centers for independent life, who have personnel by people with disabilities, who help older adults and others moving the tabilitions, and others move from moving and others and others and others and others and others and others and others and others and others and others and others and others and others and others and others and others and others and others Services, such as transport and legal assistance.
Theo W. Braddy, Executive Director of the National Independent Life Council, who represses the centers and people with disabilities, said that uncertainty has changed planning.
“Everyone is at the limit. We cannot tell you anything because we still don’t know anything,” said no one from the Trump administration or HHS has tried to contact the group with updates.
Defenders say that recent cuts have further marginalized older Americans and those with disabilities. “The conclusion is that people in charge do not care great stripes of the American people,” said Dr. Joanne Lynne, a clinical professor of geriatrics and palliative care at the George Washington University.
“We have lived with excessively unpleasant disabilities and old age,” he said. “We are ongoing to make it virtual intolerable.”
Community groups such as Meals On Wheels are reinforced for significant cuts. In addition to the possible loss of administration for community life, republican legislators are proposing to reduce subsidies to states that use another current of federal funds. The Trump administration and Republicans are also pressing for significant cuts for the Medicaid program, which provides Heath attention coverage for low -income Americans.
“We are concerned about a series of potential threats that occur at the same time,” said Josh Prostas, Meals On Wheels America, an association of local non -profit organizations. Around a third of the local units of the association already have waiting lists, he said, and the lowest funds would result in Fower meals for fewer people.
People who are 60 years old or more with low income, and who have difficulties in preparing food for Tenthelves, usually qualify for wheel meals. The demand for services is increasing as food prices increase and more people need help. More than two million major Americans receive food deliveries every year, and many say they would have difficulty paying meals without the program.
“Meals on Wheels is a God for me,” said Richard Beatty, a 70 -year -old with little vision and limited mobility who lives in Baltimore. They recover deliveries four times a week and are not sure how it would be fixed without the program.
If there are cuts in financing, the programs would have to make difficult decisions about who would be eligible for delivery. “We would have to make drastic changes in whom we were serving,” said Dan Capone, executive director of Meals on Wheels South Texas, who sings approximately 300 people per week, including Mrs. Gentis. His group also receives private donations, with federal funds representing about 40 percent of the budget, he said.
The unity of the federal community under the ax also plays a key role in supporting the disabled Americans, including older people.
“Much of the work we do is give people dignity in their lives,” said Karen Tamley, executive director of Access Living, a center based in Chicago, one of 400 in the United States.
The centers connect people with a variety of services and offer job training and skills to young adults with disabilities. They can teach some to drive or help them find affordable homes.
The administration for community experience has helped Ories navigate the state and local bureaucracies responsible for distributing federal funds. When Mr. Capone wanted more clarity about how Texas was distributing the money, he contacted the Regional Office of the Unit in Dallas. “We just started building that relationship with the field office, and that field office is gone,” he said.
“He is frustrating at a practical level,” said Fay Gordon, one of the regional administrators who was fired earlier this month. “These programs are live and need direction.”
Some groups are not waiting before starting measures to reduce costs. Brittany Boyd-Chisholm, executive director of the Center for Independent Life of the Center for Pennsylvania, said that half or its financing arrives through the Federal Agency. She has asked all managers, including herself, to take a cut in the salary of between 5 and 10 percent and weigh other actions. She said her center was no longer financed.
No one has provided it with information about future subsidies, and its emails have not returned. “It makes you feel completely alone,” said Boyd-Chisholm.
Created under the administration of Obama, the agency intended to unify the work of three Ohine agencies: the administration on aging, the Office of Disability and the Administration on Disabilities of Development.
“These beer programs together and work together were efficiency and were coordination,” said Alison Barkoff, former interim administrator of President Biden, who resigned from the past fall.
During the first Trump administration, in the heyday of the pandemic, the agency worked with the office of the Department of Civil Rights to ensure that hospitals and doctors had clear guidelines so that if the staff fell short, it would not determine the attention to people with disabilities.
“We had found a common land and problems to work together,” said Daniel Davis, who worked for the agency’s policy and evaluation center, whose full staff was fired, according to former employees.
