The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s termination of the Local Food Purchase Assistance program, which funded food banks across the country, will impact the Tampa Bay community, reports Fox 13.
Thomas Mantz, president of Feeding Tampa Bay, which supplies food to 350 community partners, tells the station that the program paid for about 4 million meals a year, a not insignificant share of the 100 million meals they serve annually:
The idea that there are less resources coming into the community to help those families is going to be difficult for us to manage.
We understand that decisions get made for a variety of reasons, but what we always want to make sure is that folks understand the impact of those decisions.
Among the thousands of workers fired at the Department of Veterans Affairs is Joy Marver, who told the New York Times how she checked herself into a hospital for emergency psychiatric care a day after being locked out of her office at the agency.
In addition to her personal story, she is worried about the ripple effect of such cuts on the agency’s ability to provide health care to veterans:
She said she was worried about layoffs affecting the doctors she relied on at the V.A.: the specialist who treated her T.B.I. [traumatic brain injury], the neurologist who managed her migraines, the therapist with whom she relived the rocket attacks, and the psychiatrist who rushed out of a meeting to see Marver as soon as she crossed the bridge, consoling and hugging her until she finally stopped shaking.
The V.A. had been scrambling to hire psychiatrists for years to make up for what it called a “severe staffing shortage” as veteran suicide rates rose to epidemic levels,
» Read more about: Injured Vet Faces Crisis After Getting Fired By the VA »
“I always tell people, ‘It’s gonna get worse before it gets better’ and people look at me like, ‘What do you mean? It can’t get any worse.’ Well, yeah, it can get worse, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.”
Commercial fisherman and seafood processors in Maine say that federal funds they get for converting to more sustainable business models have been unavailable due to budget cuts.
Togue Brawn, owner of Dayboat Blue and who has worked in commercial fishing for over three decades, told the Associated Press that “she received a little more than half of a USDA grant of about $350,000 before learning the rest might not arrive.”
In a blog post, she wrote:
We launched the program in December 2024 and were just starting to promote it when I received some surprising news: After multiple unanswered inquiries into the status of the program, I was told last week that only those costs incurred on or before January 19th 2025 were being processed — never mind the contract that states otherwise. This means roughly $30,000 I’ve already spent and was expecting to be reimbursed for immediately is currently in limbo.
» Read more about: Fishermen, Seafood Processors Who Count on Federal Funding Say It’s Frozen »
The firing of probationary employees at the VA, including the manager of a small center in Cheyenne, has veterans in Wyoming concerned about their mental health needs, reports Channel 9 News:
The veteran suicide rate in Wyoming is 50% higher than the rest of the country.
In Cheyenne, there’s a small VA center dedicated just to mental health. On Feb. 24, the office manager was fired. A Marine veteran, she was one of thousands of probationary employees fired by email for their performance.
But a recent [performance] review obtained by NBC News was glowing, her manager writing: “As a veteran herself, she listens with empathy. She is the first person our clients come into contact with.”
“I would be concerned with positions that are front-line positions that touch veterans every day,” said Justin Tripp, a 13-year Navy vet who is the state commander for the VFW.
» Read more about: Cuts to the VA Concern Vets in Wyoming, Where Suicide Rate Is High »
“It’s very unsettling and very stressful,” said Ben Palen, while driving his truck in rural Kansas. He’s a fifth-generation farmer whose family has been working the land since 1855. And he’s alarmed by the Trump administration’s recent cuts to programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture and USAID.
In the last two months, the Department of Government Efficiency, led by billionaire Elon Musk, has eliminated USDA programs to encourage better conservation practices and the USAID’s Food for Peace program, which put money in the pockets of many farmers across the country.
“They get money from the government to reimburse them for certain conservation practices,” said Palen, whose family has a 15,000-acre farm that grows wheat and raises cattle. “The farmer puts up the money first and they expect to see it repaid. And right now, there’s a real question of whether they’ll be reimbursed. And they are pretty nervous.”
This week, Disabled American Veterans launched a new initiative to “solicit and highlight the stories of disabled veterans and spouses who have experienced service setbacks or been fired from jobs across multiple federal agencies as part of the White House and Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) efforts to downsize the federal government.”
The group’s national commander, Daniel Contreras, says: “It’s heart-wrenching to hear from veterans who are contacting us with fear and anxiety about the future of the benefits, services and health care they’ve earned.”
Among them is Mandy Midgett, an Air Force veteran who was fired from the Federal Aviation Administration, who posted a video in which she said:
“This takes a toll on my emotional health since I have led a life of service and giving back to the American public. It is also my primary source of income, and now I will be cutting out some things in my life to ensure I can pay my bills.”
» Read more about: Disabled Vets Tell Their Stories of Firings and Service Setbacks »
Government workers in Oklahoma City who were fired in recent weeks are struggling to pay their bills, reports the Wall Street Journal:
The Oklahoma City metro area alone has roughly 30,000 federal workers who help inspect meat, staff prisons, fix military planes and train air-traffic controllers. They are among [the] 80% of the U.S. government’s 2.3 million nonpostal and nonuniformed employees who live beyond the Beltway, including many who are concentrated in certain regions by military bases and collections of federal offices…
Chris Dowling lost his accounting job at the Internal Revenue Service in Oklahoma City as the Trump administration cut more than 7,000 IRS workers nationwide, as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s efforts. Landing the job last year helped the 32-year-old invest in property where he hoped to raise 40 cattle. Now he is contemplating how he will handle a $36,000 land payment due later this year.
» Read more about: Fired Federal Employees in Oklahoma Struggle to Pay Bills »
The Department of Agriculture reportedly informed North Carolina officials that it will no longer fund the state’s Local Food Purchase Assistance Program — which helps fund food banks like the nonprofit Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina.
The food bank’s CEO, Amy Beros, told WUNC that
the $2 million in federal funds the nonprofit would have received would go directly to farmers for the purchase of fresh food that’s then distributed across the 34 counties they serve…
“Please reconsider this program,” she said. “These are our farmers. These are neighbors across our counties that are in need, and this is going to [have] a huge impact economically.”
Moving forward, the organization is looking for possible state funds to help mitigate the loss. In the 34 counties that the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina serves,
» Read more about: Food Banks in North Carolina Hit By Funding Cuts »
The Trump administration’s decision to stall at least $60 million in funding for affordable housing developments across the country is hitting small community nonprofits that use the money as seed funding for projects.
According to The Associated Press:
Congress chose three nonprofits to distribute the grants, but HUD said in letters that it was cancelling contracts with two of the organizations, which together were to distribute the $60 million. That’s pushed millions in funding already promised to small nonprofits, or yet to be awarded, into the twilight zone.
“Many of those organizations have already committed funds to pay workers, such as HVAC [heating, ventilation and air condition] technicians, local contractors, homeownership counselors,” said Shaun Donovan, CEO of Enterprise Community Partners and former HUD secretary under President Barack Obama. Enterprise is one of the two groups whose contracts were cancelled…
The Local Initiatives Support Corporation is the other group whose contract was cancelled.
» Read more about: Hundreds of Affordable Housing Projects Imperiled by HUD Cuts »
Cuts to grants at the USDA are impacting farmers, some of whom recently came out to a town hall in Hager City, Wisconsin, according to the Wisconsin Examiner:
Emmet Fisher, who runs a small dairy farm in Hager City, said during the town hall that he was struggling with the freeze that’s been put on federal spending, which affected grants he was set to receive through the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Fisher told the Examiner his farm has participated in a USDA program to encourage better conservation practices on farms and that money has been frozen. He was also set to receive a rural energy assistance grant that would help him install solar panels on the farm — money that has also been held up.
The result, he said, is that he’s facing increased uncertainty in an already uncertain business.
» Read more about: Wisconsin Farmers Hurt by Freeze on Grants From the USDA »
One of the Department of Education programs cut by DOGE was Charting My Path for Future Success, which helps students with disabilities get extra help planning for life after high school. The program paid for the salaries of 61 school staffers across the country, who worked with nearly 1,100 high schoolers with disabilities for a year and a half.
Jessie Damroth’s 17-year-old son Logan, who has autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and other medical needs, had attended classes and met with his mentor through the program at Newton Public Schools in Massachusetts for a month. For the first time, he was talking excitedly about career options in science and what he might study at college.
“He was starting to talk about what his path would look like,” Damroth said. “It was exciting to hear him get really excited about these opportunities.
» Read more about: DOGE Cuts Programs for High School Students With Disabilities »
Fox-5 NY reports:
An Army veteran who worked for a hospital in the Bronx says he is one of the federal workers who have recently been laid off in the Trump administration’s latest round of cuts.
“Absolutely crushed, as if all the sacrifices I made and all the work that I did was just destroyed by a single thoughtless email,” [Luke] Graziani said.
» Read more about: Disabled Vet and Father of Four Fired From Job at VA Hospital »
The U.S. Agency for International Development, shuttered by DOGE in early February, has run the Food for Peace program, which buys surplus crops from farmers and donates it to hungry people around the world.
Now farmers in Kansas, who sell their crops to county co-ops that negotiated sales with the U.S. government, are worried about the loss in revenue. The Economist reports:
The federal government allocated $1.7 [billion] for Food for Peace in 2023, which went towards farms — but also to truckers and barge operators that get commodities to ports. Kansas accounts for 57% of American sorghum production, almost all for export. The loss of USAID means one less big customer. Kim Barnes, the co-op’s chief financial officer, is cold-calling potential clients to find new markets.
“A co-op went under last year,” he says, and he predicts several more will close this year,
» Read more about: USAID Cuts Worry Kansas Farmers Who Depend on Food Assistance Sales »
Soon after the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs laid off 1,000 workers in early February, some veterans were impacted by staffing shortages. WTKR in Hampton Roads, Virginia, reports:
Hampton Roads Army veteran Valerie Jackson said she was shocked to learn that her VA appointment had been canceled, as she receives mammograms annually.
“My father passed from cancer and my daughter has cancer. So I have to have this done every year,” Jackson explained.
Jackson said the VA Medical Center in Hampton told her on Feb. 14 that her Feb. 24 appointment had been canceled due to a staffing shortage, and that June was the earliest the center could schedule her a mammogram elsewhere…
“It’s one thing to save the money, but if your people are going to suffer, is it really going to benefit them?” said Jackson.
» Read more about: Vets Experience Delays in Appointments Due to Staffing Shortages »
Some of the 3,400 U.S. Forest Service workers fired in February worked on recovery efforts in the wake of last fall’s Hurricane Helene.
The Asheville Citizen Times reports:
Caroline Becker was on the phone with her mother when her supervisor called to let her know that she was on a list of probationary employees who would soon lose their job with the U.S. Forest Service.
Becker is just one of the estimated 3,400 U.S. Forest Service workers to be fired amid the Trump administration’s dramatic effort to gut the federal workforce…
Becker, like most employees the Citizen Times spoke with, also worked on storm response.
Before she was fired, Becker had been working on compiling data and mapping for engineers rebuilding roads destroyed by Helene, she said.
“It just makes me so angry that these people are losing their jobs through no fault of their own,” Becker said.
» Read more about: Forest Service Firings Threaten Helene Recovery in North Carolina »