AmeriCorps Cuts Hit Local Nonprofits, Health Department, MSU
In May, President Donald Trump’s administration cut almost $400 million in grants funding AmeriCorps positions nationwide, including here in East Lansing.
AmeriCorps is like a domestic version of the international Peace Corps. Members work for government agencies and nonprofit organizations, supporting capacity-building efforts. These workers are frequently called in to offer help after natural disasters, with educational efforts and to support low-income communities. In return for their work, they earn a small living stipend and a roughly $7,400 scholarship that can be used after they complete their service. AmeriCorps members are often younger Americans who have recently completed their college education.
ELi spoke with three local organizations that lost their AmeriCorps workers because of the federal cuts.
Edgewood Village
Caroline Jacobs is the executive director of Edgewood Village, a nonprofit organization that helps low income households obtain affordable housing. Edgewood also supports residents with educational opportunities and community programs.
Until the funding cuts, Edgewood had two full-time AmeriCorps members who supported their youth after-school program.
“We have 134 children on property that are school age,” Jacobs said, “and we were supporting nearly 70% of them with these programs.”
Jacobs said they were able to transition one of the AmeriCorps members to a part-time position, but the loss of the AmeriCorps funding has limited Edgewood’s ability to have a stronger impact on the community youth.
“We’ll continue [the program],” she said, “but we will have to shift drastically the scope of what we’re able to do with these programs.
“We’re gonna see hundreds of thousands of hours that are being lost from the most vulnerable communities around the country. We’re going to see some really intense fallout from this and we have yet to see what the full scope of what it’s going to look like.”
Ingham County Health Department
Ali Rogers, a policy analyst with the Ingham County Health Department, received a notice of termination at 7 p.m. on a Friday night.
“We had seen talks of whether or not the funding would continue,” she said, “but we had heard nothing about the possibility of current funding being terminated. This was not on anyone’s radar. That’s what hit so hard.”
ICHD lost three full-time staff members and 24 AmeriCorps members across the Capital Area region.
“We lost folks that were working in maternal child health, that were working on diabetes prevention and community outreach, healthy housing, safe housing,” she said.
The three full-time employees ICHD lost were managers of the AmeriCorps grants, charged with recruiting the members and host sites, along with providing training and education.
“Lansing and a lot of other areas have a housing crisis,” Rogers said. “So to have a program that really focused on being able to support community folks on safe and affordable and healthy homes was amazing.”
Rogers was quick to applaud the work of the AmeriCorps workers ICHD has hosted.
“You’re really gonna find somebody who loves to serve their community and their neighbors,” she said. “It’s not for the money. They’re here for the people, for the projects, for the community, and I think that that speaks volumes.”
MSU College Advising Corps
The College Advising Corps (CAC) places AmeriCorps volunteers in Michigan high schools to assist students and their families with college searches, financial aid literacy, scholarship searches and more. 27 AmeriCorps members were serving in this capacity when the federal funding was cut.
Ashley Justice was an AmeriCorps member who served as a college advisor with the MSU CAC from 2014 to 2016. Today, she is an associate program coordinator with the organization. Because of the funding termination, her last day of employment is June 30.
“I got to work with high school seniors every day,” she said of her time as a college advisor, “meet with them, help them with the college process. We spoke about the colleges they were interested in and what might be a good fit. I helped them with applications [and] financial aid. When the financial aid award letters started coming out, [I helped] them translate it so they understand the difference between loans and grants and helping them make the best decision financially, so they’re not taking on $30,000 loans for their first year.”
Justice said the experience was a huge learning experience for her, giving her the space and time to learn from her professional career. The scholarship from the experience also helped her pay for graduate school.
“We were thankfully in a position where our fiscal officer and my director, they had enough money where we were able to keep our advisors,” she said about the current AmeriCorps workers at MSU CAC. “But they were just working as employees. They were no longer AmeriCorps members.”
Losing these workers in the schools means losing advocates for the students, she said.
“They’re losing that individual who can walk them through the financial aid process or learning about career and technical training,” she said. “Our advisors advocate for these students when some schools have counselors that are overwhelmed or don’t even have counselors.”
Manuel Rivera is the Program Director of MSU CAC. He said 80% of the federal staffing that administered the AmeriCorps program was cut and he was aware that the Department of Government Efficiency was conducting “fraud, waste, and abuse investigations” in the office.
“My office, as it stands today, is hereby still terminated,” he said. “We’re all in a waiting game. I am having conversations with MSU leadership for them to fund my program until we find out about AmeriCorps.”
Rivera said future AmeriCorps placements could be funded through a grant his department applied for, but it is unlikely he will find out until September or October. He has submitted a request to the university to be funded with 10 college advisors in the fall. He said there is no guarantee he will receive a response.
“It’s just me,” he said. “I’m here until October 31, continuing to try to advocate for the program.”
The loss of the program in the schools will hurt vulnerable populations, Rivera said.
“We tend to partner with high schools that have higher reduced lunch rates,” he said. “They have higher [numbers of] first generation, low-income [students].”
Approximately half of the schools CAC serve are rural communities, including area schools Webberville and Stockbridge.
“Annually, we served more than 5,000 high school seniors directly,” he said. “Many of these students just don’t have family members or neighbors who have gone onto our formal education who can assist them or direct them, or guide them in this type of process, or even advocate why it’s still a benefit.
“Maybe not [each student will go to] a four-year institution,” he said. “We tell our students that you don’t have to come to Michigan State or Grand Valley, or University of Michigan. But if you want to be a nurse, here’s a great certificate program at your local community college that you can do. If you are a fifth-generation farmer, farming technology is advancing and you’re going to need career and technical education.
“So when you hear college access, it doesn’t have to mean Michigan State or a four-year school.”