MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
For groups that help poor people, 2025 has been a year of chaos, and not just because of the recent government shutdown. NPR's Jennifer Ludden went to southeastern Ohio to see how local nonprofits there have scrambled as the Trump administration tried to scale back the social safety net. Hey there, Jennifer.
JENNIFER LUDDEN, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Hi. So I want to start bigger picture because you, many, many of our other reporters have been chronicling the long list of federal cutbacks this year. What is the bigger picture for these anti-poverty groups?
LUDDEN: Well, you know, a huge chunk of their budget, like 80%, is from federal grants. So they have been on the frontline of all of this. And specifically, I'm talking about a network of groups that date to the 1960's war on poverty. They're called community action agencies. They're all across the country, and they connect people to housing, food, heating aid, Head Start, I mean, on and on.
And the chaos for them started back in January, when President Trump ordered a freeze on all spending. After that, there were more funding cuts, funding pauses, some proposals to completely end programs. In southeast Ohio, Megan Riddlebarger heads the Corporation for Ohio Appalachian Development and oversees 17 of these agencies. And she says, even though many cuts were reversed, the uncertainty of what may be hit next is a huge challenge.
MEGAN RIDDLEBARGER: Maybe it'll go away. Maybe it won't. Maybe it's back. Maybe it's not. How long will it stay? What will happen next? Not knowing which of our many services we are going to be able to keep operating makes us waste valuable capacity trying to plug holes that shouldn't be holes.
KELLY: Trying to plug holes that shouldn't be holes. Have they been able to do that, Jennifer, plug the holes, keep on going?
LUDDEN: Mostly, yes, she says. But, you know, they've also had to pull back on some plans, including a badly needed homeless shelter in one rural area, and they've had to lay people off. Even volunteers have felt this kind of turmoil. Diana Eads is a senior companion with AmeriCorps. She visits older people to help them stay put at home. And she gets a small stipend for gas and such, $4 an hour. And when the Trump administration gutted AmeriCorps last spring, even that small stipend was at stake. Eads told me she'd been visiting one 88-year-old woman for five years and did not want to abandon her.
DIANA EADS: Being rural, my one companion - it's 56 miles round trip. I told her no matter what happened, I would not stop visiting. So - and that was important.
LUDDEN: The agency found some philanthropic funding to fill the gap, and then eventually, a court ordered AmeriCorps funding be restored.
KELLY: But back to this concern about disruption and just the uncertainty. When you put questions about that to the Trump administration, how do they answer them?
LUDDEN: Well, in a statement to NPR, the Office of Management and Budget said that these anti-poverty programs fund, quote, "radically partisan activities." It cited things like teaching toddlers to be antiracist and using clean energy for environmental justice. And the statement said President Trump ran on fiscal responsibility and ending wasteful DEI spending. I should add that White House budget also proposed ending the block grant that funds these groups.
Now, David Bradley advocates for them with the National Community Action Foundation. He says this really goes against decades of bipartisan support. But this year, even when lawmakers did fund this block grant, the Office of Management and Budget held up the money for months.
DAVID BRADLEY: OMB just decided not to spend it, totally usurping congressional authority. So we've had two major fights with the administration. We won them because Republicans helped.
KELLY: So let's look ahead. What is the outlook for next year?
LUDDEN: Well, you know, with congressional federal budget still not set, Bradley worries about another funding fight. And also, major budget cuts to Medicaid and food aid are going to start to kick in. We now see unemployment ticking up. So, you know, there is concern that there could be even more demand on these local anti-poverty groups.
KELLY: NPR's Jennifer Ludden reporting. Thanks, Jennifer.
LUDDEN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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