{"id":419192,"date":"2026-01-17T13:44:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:44:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/419192\/"},"modified":"2026-01-17T13:44:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-17T13:44:07","slug":"its-whiplash-reversed-cuts-incredibly-disruptive-for-us-mental-health-and-substance-abuse-programs-trump-administration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/419192\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It\u2019s whiplash\u2019: reversed cuts \u2018incredibly disruptive\u2019 for US mental health and substance abuse programs | Trump administration"},"content":{"rendered":"

A counseling program in Alabama for people with HIV, helping them get into treatment and housing. A training program in New Hampshire for first responders learning how better to respond to people in mental health crises. Mental health<\/a> counseling for children in Tennessee experiencing trauma.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday, the funding for these and thousands of other programs was rescinded<\/a>. The halt affected about 2,800 organizations across the nation offering mental health and substance use services, often on the front lines of the dual crises, in partnership with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (Samhsa).<\/p>\n

Directors of these programs woke up on Wednesday to a letter saying their funding from the US government had been cut, effective immediately. They scrambled to set up emergency meetings to go over the payroll, agonize over who would be laid off and trying to find other ways to keep their doors open and programs running.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, they received a new notice<\/a>: the federal award cancellations were \u201chereby reinstated\u201d, according to a letter obtained by the Guardian. \u201cPlease disregard the prior termination notice and continue program activities,\u201d the notice said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s whiplash,\u201d said Reuben Rotman, president and CEO of the Network of Jewish Human Service Agencies, which provide mental health counseling and other services. It\u2019s \u201cincredibly disruptive\u201d for organizations, and the communities that they serve, to have funding yanked, even when it is later restored, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re doing the work and you\u2019re reporting to the government and you\u2019re in full compliance with everything, you\u2019re not expecting your contract, with no warning and no communication from anybody\u201d to be \u201cabruptly terminated\u201d in an email at 3am, Rotman said.<\/p>\n

The biggest blow was not knowing whether they would be able to continue providing services, said Devin Lyall, founder of Wilkes Recovery Revolution in rural North Carolina.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe threat to people that are already a vulnerable population, that are in care and receiving treatment and receiving help to rebuild lives, that that care might disappear overnight, I think is the biggest concern,\u201d Lyall said.<\/p>\n

Wilkes Recovery Revolution is in the third year of a five-year Samhsa grant of $300,000 a year, totaling one-fifth of their funding. The award covered transitional housing, peer support services, transportation to treatment, work and doctors\u2019 appointments, and more. The programs were created because \u201cthere was a gap in our system of care here, and so individuals were falling through the cracks at no fault of their own\u201d, said Lyall.<\/p>\n

Participants in the housing program have done the hard work of going through treatment, finding employment and \u201cbecoming a part of the community again, and then a decision like that can set someone back\u201d, Lyall said. While other projects with different funding sources would have continued, removing housing would\u2019ve been like \u201cpulling a piece of the puzzle out\u201d of recovery.<\/p>\n

When she received the letter saying that the program no longer aligned with the Trump administration\u2019s funding priorities, it felt like \u201ca direct hit\u201d, Lyall said. Now that the funding has been restored, she\u2019s still afraid it will be yanked again one day.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it can happen [on Wednesday], and that authority can be exercised with no warning and no transparency, no safeguards, then why can\u2019t that happen again two weeks, a month, two months, three months down the road?\u201d Lyall said.<\/p>\n

That makes it difficult to know how to plan for the future, grantees said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very difficult to feel any confidence that the funding is secure,\u201d Rotman said. \u201cWe are in a very volatile state right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The episode underscored a deeper issue, that \u201clife-saving care cannot operate on instability\u201d, said Saeeda Dunston, CEO of Elmcor Youth & Adult Activities Inc, a Black-led non-profit serving Queens communities hit hard by overdose and behavioral health disparities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are serious about addressing disparities impacting Black communities in overdose and behavioral health outcomes, we must invest in systems that can withstand political shifts and ensure care is available today and remains available for the long term,\u201d Dunston said.<\/p>\n

Rotman noted that \u201cthe safety net for the most vulnerable is most surely being eroded, and it\u2019s raising a lot of concern\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A counseling program in Alabama for people with HIV, helping them get into treatment and housing. A training…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419193,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,137,514,515],"class_list":{"0":"post-419192","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-mental-health","12":"tag-mentalhealth"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}