PROVINCETOWN — A federal judge in Maryland on June 5 blocked the Trump administration’s cuts to AmeriCorps, the community service agency, in 24 states including Massachusetts — reinstating, at least for now, $530,000 in grants to two organizations working on the Outer Cape: AmeriCorps Cape Cod and Helping Our Women (HOW).
In an opinion accompanying her order, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman wrote that the cuts violated notice-and-comment procedures and would be devastating for states, leaving them without staff to perform essential health, conservation, and educational work.
The AmeriCorps grants had been terminated by the Dept. of Government Efficiency on April 25 and April 27. On Outer Cape Cod, AmeriCorps members serve in roles including emergency disaster relief, forest fire management, health services, and marsh restoration. AmeriCorps Cape Cod hosts members through a county-run program, and HOW, working in Eastham and Provincetown, receives grants as a nonprofit sponsor.
Misty Niemeyer, program manager of AmeriCorps Cape Cod, and Gwynne Guzzeau, executive director of HOW, confirmed on June 6 that their grants were reinstated that day.
“We’re back in business — wow,” said Guzzeau, who was on the phone with the Independent when she learned of the reinstatement. “That’s crazy. This thing is crazy.”
The sudden reversal has generated as much confusion as clarity among service providers. Niemeyer said officials had been working to separate the county program from AmeriCorps entirely, tentatively dubbing it “Cape Cod Corps” as they searched for new funding. The new name had been announced on May 8.
“There’s still a lot of things we need to figure out,” said Niemeyer. Only the funds for the current service year have been reinstated, and the county has not secured funding for future years, she said. But the change means members can now receive federal benefits that the county couldn’t fully replace, like education awards credited to student loans. AmeriCorps members Brendan Williamson and Anthony Baez told the Independent that they rely on those awards for student loan repayments.
Guzzeau said the reinstated grants for her programs are expiring on July 26. She was preparing a renewal application when the cuts were announced in April. She said her renewal request is still frozen in an online portal — so “we can’t proceed with this application” for next year.
Since the Independent reported the cuts, Guzzeau said, HOW has hired one of its two AmeriCorps members as a regular employee: Pam Mahoney, whose service year ended in June, is now a full-time program manager.
AmeriCorps Cape Cod has nine active members this year, three of whom live in Wellfleet with a program supervisor. The grants to Helping Our Women, meanwhile, would fund six full-time positions: two in staff at HOW and four planned at partner organizations including Sustainable CAPE, Truro Community Kitchen, and the Family Table Collaborative, all related to food access.
Town Officials’ Concerns
Helping Our Women was asked to report on its terminated grants at a June 4 roundtable of health and service organizations in Provincetown, Guzzeau said. The meeting, which was not public, was hosted by Provincetown Health Agent Lezli Rowell and included the AIDS Support Group of Cape Cod and Outer Cape Health Services among other providers, according to Guzzeau.
Rowell said she was prompted to convene the session after the select board on May 27 discussed federal funding shortfalls and their effect on local health-care providers.
“Have we looked at what things we get from the state in terms of funding and grants that come from federal sources?” asked select board chair Dave Abramson at that meeting. “We’re at a time now where this town is going to need to figure out how we continue to protect the health and safety of its residents.”
“The board of health has discussed some of the impending cuts at the state level as a result of federal action,” Town Manager Alex Morse told the board. “We’re committed to working with the select board, staff, and volunteers to make sure we maintain the health-care coverage and resources that our residents have always relied on.”
“Everyone’s alarmed about federal budget cuts,” Rowell said on June 9.
Guzzeau reported that HOW currently serves 149 Provincetown residents ranging in age from mid-30s to mid-90s. Nearly half receive monthly financial assistance and live at or below 210 percent of the federal poverty rate. Some of HOW’s programs rely on AmeriCorps members’ labor, such as grocery and soup kitchen meal deliveries to Provincetown households.
In addition to the direct federal grant of $30,000, she wrote to Rowell, HOW indirectly benefits from the stipends that AmeriCorps pays to supplement members’ living expenses. Guzzeau estimated the annual stipends amount to $27,000 for each of the six full-time positions.
All told, the potential cuts next year at HOW would amount to an estimated $192,000 of direct and indirect funding lost.
Compliance Still Required
Judge Boardman’s ruling dealt with President Trump’s Feb. 11 executive order on “government efficiency” used to justify the cuts, but it did not challenge his Jan. 20 orders restricting programs related to “gender ideology” and D.E.I. for recipients of federal funds. That means Cape Cod’s AmeriCorps partners must return to obeying those rules to keep their reinstated grants.
So long as funding is attached to those orders, the Wellfleet hospice Lily House will continue not to participate in HOW’s AmeriCorps placements, Executive Director Dawn Walsh said on June 9. When Lily House received news that all sites would need to comply with Trump’s orders, its board declined to renew the contract and its AmeriCorps member left.
“I don’t want to lose the thread of what’s at stake here in terms of capitulating,” Walsh said. The orders, she said, were “endangering the safety and dignity of our community.”
That choice is not without costs: Walsh said she and two other staff are trying to absorb the work of the full-time volunteer and outreach coordinator they lost. But the choice was still worth it, she said.
“We made a decision based on values,” she said, “and that takes precedence over the hardships that may ensue.”
