On Jan. 27, President Donald Trump’s Office of Management and Budget issued a sweeping memorandum freezing nearly all federal aid, including funds for homelessness and domestic violence service organizations. While the decision was quickly blocked by a judge, the future of federal funding remains uncertain. And, for the 48 hours funding was frozen, D.C. organizations that serve the city’s most vulnerable residents scrambled to figure out if they would still be able to provide services and make payroll.
Nationally, some organizations have already been forced to fire employees and curtail spending on critical programs. At least 50 Head Start programs around the country, including in D.C. and Virginia, were still unable to access federal funds as of Feb. 10, leaving low-income families uncertain about their children’s education.
D.C.’s homelessness service providers, many of whom rely on federal money to fund housing and outreach programs, worry about what permanent cuts would mean for those they serve.
“This seems like the most difficult five-year period of the 29 years I’ve been here, that we’ve ever had,” George Jones, CEO of Bread for the City, which provides food, medical, and legal services to low-income D.C. residents, said.
But it’s not only the federal government causing D.C. homeless service providers to worry about their budgets. D.C.’s Department of Human Services (DHS) has failed to fulfill several grants and contracts since Oct. 1, 2024, as Washington City Paper first reported. It’s a perfect storm of confusion around grant funding that’s forcing nonprofit leaders to make some hard, cost-cutting staff decisions to continue to serve some of the most vulnerable populations like homeless youth and domestic abuse survivors.
“This is unprecedented,” Deborah Shore, the longtime executive director of Sasha Bruce Youthworks, said. “What they’re doing is unprecedented, getting their hands on the levers of payment for all of these programs.”
Shore founded Sasha Bruce Youthworks more than 50 years ago to support D.C.’s homeless youth. Now, the organization serves thousands of young people every year with housing assistance, counseling, education, and case management services. Shore estimates 25% of their funding comes from the federal government. Sasha Bruce isn’t alone — about one-third of nonprofit revenue nationally comes from the government.
Nonprofit leaders like Shore are used to uncertain budgets and adapting to new administrations, but after the pandemic and the arrival of the Trump presidency, they are facing new obstacles. Most D.C. service providers rely on some funding from D.C. or the federal government. For many, losing either means cutting staff and serving fewer clients.
Bread for the City, for instance, lost more than $4 million in revenue following the rescission of Covid-era direct federal funds, and had to let go of nearly 20 staff members. So far the organization has avoided cutting any service programs, opting to do more with less. Now, the more than 10% of their funding that is derived from federal grants may be at risk.
Jones, the Bread for the City CEO, and other providers worry about the “chaos” and “lack of empathy” they say the Trump administration is displaying.
“The government’s not concerned about hurting everyday people,” Jones said. “That’s who Bread for the City serves.”
Funding at Sasha Bruce, like many nonprofits, was already tight. In addition to the federal freeze, the organization had the added struggle of waiting for DHS and the Department of Behavioral Health (DBH) to fulfill their contracts. While Shore said DHS fulfilled its grants in the last few days of January, several months late, the organization was still waiting on the DBH contract as of Feb. 7.
While nonprofits often face uncertain funding, Shore said the issues with grant disbursement from DHS are at an all-time high and come when nonprofits worry they won’t have federal grants to lean on in the near future.
“I’ve been at this for a long time — 50 years — this has never happened before. Not getting paid is something that has happened many times before, but not getting contracts when they start months earlier than the end of the contract period?” Shore said. “It would be great to have more reassurance that this is not going to continue into next year.”
In early 2024, DHS demanded homelessness service providers cut their spending, citing “spending pressures,” according to City Paper. Since October, DHS has failed to pay out many of its fiscal year 2025 grants and fulfill its contracts with D.C. providers. For months, nonprofit leaders have been asking the agency to pay out with little success. Some leaders were forced to take out personal loans to make payroll, City Paper reported.
By early February, many organizations said they had received some or all of their DHS grants, but a few are still waiting on contracts and reimbursements for services already rendered.
“The delays are devastating,” Rachel White, DC Action’s policy director, said. White has
repeatedly called out DHS for their failure to pay, including in a public advocacy letter released on Jan. 10. “Shutting down or reducing services [means] young people will be left in unsafe situations, potentially sleeping outside in freezing temperatures.”
According to a DHS spokesperson, the agency is aware of the delay and working on fulfilling the contracts. “We have been in close communication with providers and understand the impact. We are working diligently to ensure all FY25 grants are fully executed and to process invoices as quickly as possible,” a DHS spokesperson wrote to Street Sense Media.
White urged DHS to immediately pay all costs incurred by providers since Oct. 1 and focus on future, long-term solutions.
“This happens year after year, and so what can we change in the system to ensure that it doesn’t happen next year? And then [we need] transparent communication from DHS so that providers aren’t left in the dark about when they’ll be paying as they provide these critical services,” White said.
Providers say the impacts of any reductions in funding will directly hurt the people they serve, as D.C. residents may no longer have access to programs that help them find housing, apply for benefits, or stay fed. As news about the freeze flies around the city, providers say Washingtonians are already concerned they’ll lose services.
“We throw families in a tremendous chaos when they don’t have services. What if we were not here for a family that’s fleeing domestic violence?” Sandra Jackson, CEO of House of Ruth, asked. “That’s a big reason why many families don’t leave those situations, because they don’t want to become houseless, they don’t want to find themselves on the street.”
House of Ruth serves women and children fleeing domestic violence and provides them with housing, childcare, and mental health services. Jackson worries about what would happen to the more than 1,000 clients her organization serves if they were to lose the more than $2.6 million in federal funding the organization received in fiscal years 2022 and 2023.
“We’ve already had some of our existing families call us and say, ‘Okay, does that mean I have to leave?’ Because they don’t know what it means,” Jackson said. “That is a terrible message to send in the way that it was sent, without any explanation, without any reasoning, it’s just unthinkable that that would have happened and thrown the system in such chaos.”
As of Feb. 7, Shore said the federal government has had no communication with Sasha Bruce about the future of their funding. In spite of struggles at the federal level, Jackson said, local agencies like DHS and the mayor’s office have been quick to support her organization.
The future of this new, “chaotic” system remains uncertain, leaving providers feeling uneasy. “I’m really concerned about the lack of empathy and concern there seems to be about what it means to be so disruptive in an environment where we are providing very essential services to people,” Shore said.
