Leaders from various organizations in California's north coast met with Democratic Representative Jared Huffman for a virtual roundtable Monday. They discussed how much they rely on federal funding for just about everything.
Some of the more obvious targets for cuts are housing, healthcare and food assistance programs. But even wildfire prevention and recovery programs could face cuts. Jill Demers is executive director for the Humboldt Resource Conservation District, which manages fuels reduction projects.
“We’ve been told that it’s in our best interest to reduce spending right now while looking forward," she said.
Most organizations said they could only last a couple months at most if they lost federal funding.
Kerry Venegas from Changing Tides Family Services in Humboldt County said cuts to programs like child care assistance would have major impacts.
“In our county alone that’s over 1,500 kids, almost 1,000 families immediately would have a cessation," she said.
The efforts by the White House to eliminate any diversity and inclusion funding could hurt assistance programs that help the most vulnerable.
Representative Huffman noted that one order called for freezing any funding for so-called “Marxist” programs.
“If we are trying to redistribute resources to help people at the lower end economically, it’s not hard to imagine some political appointee from DOGE or somewhere else saying, ‘That feels kinda Marxist, kinda Socialist,’” Huffman said.
Huffman said that rural communities will be impacted the most by cuts to federal funding.
He said he’ll be taking what he’s heard from constituents to Washington to show how these efforts are doing more harm than good.