After Trump administration announces federal funding freeze and judge blocks it, local social service agencies are watching closely
photo by: Josie Heimsoth/Journal-World
After an order from the Trump administration that would have frozen trillions of dollars in federal funds — and a judge’s decision to temporarily block it — some local social service organizations are watching closely to see whether their future programming might be affected.
The funding freeze was announced on Monday night, and was then blocked on Tuesday evening until Feb. 3 by U.S. District Judge Loren L. AliKhan, as The Associated Press reported. It called for the temporary pause “of all Federal financial assistance” to any programs that may be affected by President Donald Trump’s recent string of executive orders, including but not limited to “financial assistance for foreign aid, nongovernmental organizations, DEI, woke gender ideology, and the green new deal.”
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Among the federally funded programs that advocates worried might be affected are programs that help low-income Americans with child care, housing and other necessities for daily living. Leaders of two Douglas County agencies that administer such services — ECKAN and the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority — said Tuesday that they are still operating as usual for now, but that there’s uncertainty about what may happen in the future.
“All things are fluid at this moment,” Crystal Anderson, the CEO of ECKAN, said Tuesday afternoon.
ECKAN helps administer Head Start programs across 12 locations in eastern Kansas, including Douglas County. Head Start, a federally funded program that provides preschool for low-income children and support services for their families, had been the subject of some concerns after the freeze was announced, and the National Head Start Association’s executive director, Yasmina Vinci, called the order “deeply unsettling” in a statement on Monday.
Anderson said that as of Tuesday afternoon, the federal freeze “will not affect (the organization’s) Head Start programs.” But she also said there was still a lot of uncertainty as people at the federal level were working to understand the directives.
The memo sent out about the freeze by the Office of Management and Budget specifically said that it was intended to allow the Trump administration to review agencies’ programs and “determine the best uses of the funding” moving forward. It does say that it would not impact “assistance received directly by individuals” or Medicare and Social Security payments.
But The Associated Press, which referred to the memo as “vaguely worded,” said that many lawmakers and public officials were struggling to understand which programs would be affected, and that the White House throughout the day gave “incomplete answers” about what might occur. One local government spokesperson the AP reached out to was in Kansas — David Smith, a spokesperson for the Shawnee Mission school district — and he said that “This sort of came out of the blue,” and that school districts were trying to figure out what it meant “based on zero information.”
The sheer amount of federal spending that could be affected means the stakes for organizations that rely on federal money could be high. The memo from OMB says that more than $3 trillion was spent on “federal financial assistance” during the 2024 fiscal year. And according to USAspending.gov, a database that provides an overview of federal spending, there were $754.3 million worth of federal obligations in Douglas County during the 2024 fiscal year. About $486.9 million of that came from the Social Security Administration — 64.5% of the total federal obligation — but it’s unclear what the future holds for other portions of the remaining $267.4 million.
Shannon Oury, the CEO for the Lawrence-Douglas County Housing Authority, said she was sent a follow-up memo from OMB about how the federal funding might be affected. The memo states that “funds for small businesses, farmers, Pell grants, Head Start, rental assistance, and other similar programs will not be paused,” so Oury said she hoped there wouldn’t be issues for LDCHA’s rental assistance program.
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However, LDCHA has not received any guidance from OMB or the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on how “public housing subsidy and voucher rental assistance will be treated,” Oury said. She also said the authority had applied for several other federal grants for capital projects, meaning those projects could “be interrupted” if the freeze were to go into effect.
Oury noted that even if there are cuts to federal grants, LDCHA has “sufficient reserve funds to operate for several months until the situation is clarified.”
“We want to assure our residents and participating landlords that we will continue business as usual and no one’s housing is in imminent jeopardy,” Oury said.