HHS layoffs hit Meals on Wheels and other services for seniors and disabled
The layoffs at the Department of Health and Human Services slashed the staffs of major federal aging, disability and anti-poverty programs, leaving the future of those programs uncertain.
At least 40% of staff got layoff notices and many were turned away at the front door Tuesday when they showed up for work at the Administration for Community Living, or ACL, which coordinates federal policy on aging and disability. That’s according to the agency’s former director under the Biden Administration, Alison Barkoff, who says she talked to multiple members of her former staff.
The agency funds programs that run senior centers and distribute 216 million meals a year to older and disabled people through the Meals on Wheels program.
“The programs that ACL implements improve the lives of literally tens of millions of older adults, people with disabilities and their families and caregivers,” says Barkoff, now director of a health law program at George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health. “There’s no way to have these RIFs and not impact the programs and the people who rely on them.”
Last week, the announcement of the coming layoffs at HHS said that ACL’s responsibilities would go to different parts of HHS.
But Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s guide for reshaping government, had suggested ACL take on work on special education services once the Department of Education was dismantled. It’s not clear where that work will be done now.
In addition, every staffer was laid off from the Division of Energy Assistance, according to two employees who lost their jobs on Tuesday, Andrew Germain and Vikki Pretlow. The office runs the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, or LIHEAP, which helps 5.9 million low-income households pay heat and cooling bills and pay for home repairs to boost energy efficiency.
The staffers said layoffs of about 20 workers came as a surprise and they expressed concern about whether the program would continue once funding runs out at the end of September and impoverished people face rising heating bills in fall and winter.
LIHEAP provides “life-saving services,” says Germain. One way the funds are used is to help low-income people pay their electric bills when they rely upon oxygen or other medical devices or need to keep the refrigerator running to store insulin or other medicines.
Germain ran compliance monitoring to make sure states used the LIHEAP money correctly. He said fraud is rare. But LIHEAP was scrutinized by Project 2025. It noted a “loophole” – fixed by Congress more than ten years ago, in 2014 – that was used by about 10 states to give minimal energy assistance in a way that then qualified impoverished people for a bigger SNAP, or food stamp, payment.
Congress appropriated $4.1 billion to LIHEAP in fiscal year 2024. Germain says without federal staff to run the program, it’s unclear how it will continue after the current appropriation ends in September.
Pretlow, who lost her job as a program specialist in the LIHEAP office, said: “You can be paid much more in a different place, you can be praised more in a different place, you can be appreciated more in a different place. But the people I worked with have a great heart for service.”
CDC to disburse delayed funds for fighting fentanyl and more, staffers say
Much of the public health agency's $9 billion budget had been in limbo but funds are finally flowing, according to CDC staffers, including for a key overdose prevention program.
Do we have a song of the summer this year?
The idea that each year produces a few unofficial "songs of the summer" has been rattling around for ages. But do we have a strong contender this year?
4 European countries agree to buy a combined $1 billion in U.S. weapons for Ukraine
The weapons include U.S. missiles for Patriot air defense systems already in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also said he had a "productive" call with President Trump.
Confederate statue toppled during Black Lives Matter protests will be reinstalled
The statue of Albert Pike, a Confederate general and Freemason leader, was vandalized and taken down on Juneteenth in 2020. It is the only statue of a Confederate general in Washington, D.C.
Your call to a local Social Security office may be picked up by someone who can’t help
Phone calls to local Social Security offices are currently being rerouted to other field offices — often to staff who don't have jurisdiction over the caller's case, employees say.
Sean Combs denied bail, will remain in custody until sentencing
Combs was convicted on July 2 of two counts of transportation for prostitution. The music mogul had filed a request to be released on bail before his sentencing, which is scheduled for Oct. 3.