While we strive to be a politics-free zone on agebuzz, we are also committed to providing accurate, factual, up-to-date information on issues that may have direct relevance to older adults. Therefore, agebuzz readers need to understand just how many programs and services in your communities may be affected by significant federal cuts that have either already taken place or are being proposed for the new budget cycle now being debated. We’ve previously highlighted cuts that have already begun to affect Social Security recipients, along with proposed cuts to Medicaid that will not only affect low-income seniors but could have negative ripple effects throughout the entire health care system.

Until recently, many of the major community programs serving older adults that received federal funding were managed under the auspices of the Administration for Community Living (ACL), which has been part of HHS and has had the primary responsibility for carrying out the provisions of the 1965 Older Americans Act. It’s because of the Older Americans Act, as overseen by the ACL, that programs such as Meals On Wheels and respite care for caregivers exist in your communities. However, within the last several weeks, HSS has announced significant administrative changes and staff reductions that, at a minimum, threaten the smooth implementation of these programs and potentially spell disaster and program cancellations for many of these most essential programs that seniors rely on. At the end of March, the Trump administration announced plans to abolish the ACL (which also administers programs allowing people with disabilities to lead lives of independence in the community) and to distribute the various functions of the ACL among other HHS departments. While technically this would not end the services currently administered by ACL, it will nonetheless cause service and administrative disruptions that could delay or curtail vital programs. Moreover, similar to what’s been happening in the Social Security Administration, these programs may lose experts with long-standing experience about the history and support these programs provide to older adults. In fact, just a few weeks after the ACL announcement, the Trump administration then announced staff cuts of close to 50% of the federal workers who oversee these programs. Staffers who manage and oversee the federal grants for these community programs are gone, as are those who evaluate the grants, and all regional offices responsible for the coordination of these programs with state and local entities have been closed. For a list of many of the programs that are being moved or will have budgets cut or both, click here.

Let’s look at just one of the programs that will be affected by these administrative changes and staff and budget cuts: Meals on Wheels. Not only does Meals on Wheels serve millions of nutritious meals each year to homebound seniors, but in many cases, it also provides crucial social interaction and check-ins for older adults who are otherwise alone and isolated. It also allows those on very limited budgets to stretch their food dollars each month. There’s no argument that providing healthy and nutritious meals to seniors who might otherwise go without food is both the right thing to do and is also a preventive health measure, lowering the risk that many of these seniors would otherwise land in expensive emergency rooms or expensive institutional care. Already, many Meals on Wheels programs are reporting a delay in their receipt of federal funding and are preparing to have to limit the number of meals they can provide (this at a time when more than ⅓ of Meals on Wheels programs report that they have existing wait lists).  As one advocate for older adults has made clear, “It’s not hyperbolic to say that we’re going to be leaving people hungry and that this literally has life and death implications.” It should be noted that most of those who deliver Meals on Wheels are volunteers, and that for more than 60% of Meals on Wheels programs across the country, the loss of federal funding means that half or more of their total revenue will be lost.

Other programs either on the chopping block or that have already been hit by budget cuts? About $400 million of grants from AmeriCorps have been terminated by DOGE. These cuts include cuts to the AmeriCorps Seniors Network, which was started in 1993. Under these programs, older adults in the community have volunteered to be foster grandparents, along with volunteer companions to other seniors in the community. Because of efforts to remove all “DEI” language and content from federal disbursements of money, many of these programs are now facing extinction, even though we know volunteering is an essential strategy for healthy aging. Or consider the DOGE cuts to a program initiated under the Inflation Reduction Act, which would modernize and retrofit inefficient and energy-wasting affordable housing. NPR recently profiled a low-income senior housing community that has no working air conditioning or heating, and that had its grant to remedy that situation cut. While everyone supports cutting waste and inefficiencies in the federal government, from the outside, it sure does appear that no one has carefully reviewed what the impact of these cuts would be on vulnerable older adults living in the community. It strains credulity that, knowing seniors would go hungry or face life-threatening heat, someone would nonetheless decide that these cuts were necessary to make the government more efficient.