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Central Florida housing nonprofits worry about Trump’s freeze on federal funds, despite injunction

Services like free meals for people experiencing homelessness and food insecurity might be threatened by the federal funds freeze.
Lillian Hernández Caraballo
Services like free meals for people experiencing homelessness and food insecurity might be threatened by the federal funds freeze.

A judge issued a temporary injunction on Tuesday against President Donald Trump’s executive order freezing federal grants and loans.

The order came Monday from the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, stating that the government will be reviewing any organization whose operations depend on the annual $3 trillion of federal assistance funds. The news stirred worry among local nonprofits that use federal dollars to provide crucial services to people in need.

“I don't think the White House understands the total impact of freezing these funds. It's really madness,” said Brian Postlewait, COO of the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida, the region’s main agency funded by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to address local homeless and housing issues.

Most local direct service nonprofits work through reimbursements. First, they pay for important resources — from things like housing or mental health treatment, to paychecks for their caseworkers. These expenses are then submitted for reimbursement, to be fulfilled via federal funds and grants.

In a statement, Kate Santich, director of communications at the Homeless Services Network of Central Florida, said the agency is “greatly relieved” by the judge’s decision, which she said gives them more time to figure out how their region might be impacted.

“[It] at least gives us time to figure out which programs will be impacted. As you probably know, the White House had said this pause would not affect individuals, but our programs pay the rents for many individuals, including military veterans, victims of domestic violence and human trafficking, and people with disabilities. Before the judge's ruling, we were uncertain if we would be able to pay these rents on February 1, which would likely have led to some of those people being evicted,” she said.

Postlewait said the HSNCFL is on high alert. The agency is responsible for disbursing these allotted funds to the rest of the housing and homeless services nonprofits across Central Florida. Without the reimbursements, however, he said cash will run out in just a few days.

“These are monies that pay rents, that pay staff who provide services to people experiencing homelessness. If communities aren't able to pay rents at the beginning of the month, hundreds of thousands of people will be jeopardized across the country, including a couple thousand here in Central Florida,” he said.

The mandate said this is to ensure that grant-funded organizations align with a series of recent executive orders, targeting so-called “Marxist equity, transgenderism, and green new deal” policies. The order said taxpayer dollars should not be spent funding “wasteful” DEI programs and “wokeness.”

The Framily Support Network — a queer-founded organization in Orlando — uses federal dollars to provide direct services to its clients, most of whom are disabled veterans and seniors, as well as food-insecure families.

President and CEO Aaron Lewis said the temporary stay from the judge secures services for now, but he still feels uncertain about the future.

“No way we can let our guard down. All it takes is an appeal to the right judge for millions to be forced to go without support. I’ll put my guard down when I feel like we have an administration that is prioritizing the housing of millions of Americans,” he said.

According to Lewis, they are intentional about efforts to be equitable and inclusive to all people in need. He said the Framily Support Network will not change its approach and will resort to other sources of funding if it comes down to it.

We're gonna create equitable opportunities. I will continue to do everything that I can to ensure that every program we have is targeting everyone, so that everybody has an opportunity to overcome being homeless,” Lewis said. “We're not looking to pick a fight, but we're also not going to start discriminating against anybody in order to be able to secure funding.”

Lewis said, right now, most nonprofits are taking a “wait-and-see” approach, hoping for the best.

The Trump Administration explicitly excluded Social Security and Medicare and said that mandatory programs like Medicaid and SNAP are also safe.

The OMB has requested for organizations to submit detailed information of their programs for review of issuance by Feb. 10.

Lillian Hernández Caraballo is a Report for American corps member.

Lillian (Lilly) Hernández Caraballo is a bilingual, multimedia journalist covering housing and homelessness for Central Florida Public Media, as a Report for America corps member.
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