News came Tuesday of a roughly $2 billion cut in federal grants meant for mental health and substance abuse treatment services. But within 24 hours the money had been restored.
That quick change threw Alabama’s mental health practitioners, many of whom rely on federal grants, into confusion.
“It’s kind of a weird circumstance,” said Kent Davis, executive director of Vets Recover and former commissioner of the state Department of Veterans Affairs. “Never seen anything quite like that, but ultimately, I guess it’s good news.”
On Tuesday night, more than 2,000 grantees around the country received letters, notifying them that their grants, administered by the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), were terminated because they didn’t align with President Donald Trump’s public health agenda, according to NPR.
But by Wednesday night, a Trump administration official told NPR the grants were being restored, after swift backlash from congresspeople and mental health advocates across the country.
Vets Recover, a nonprofit based in Mobile that specializes in mental health and substance abuse treatment for veterans and first responders, was set to lose around $100,000 in grant funds, according to Davis.
The money was earmarked for the group’s education program, Davis said. Vets Recover does “mental health first aid” trainings, designed to provide everyday people with knowledge and skills to help someone experiencing a mental health crisis.
“Sometimes prevention is the best way to treat mental health issues, to just nip it in the bud,” Davis said. “That’s what this grant does.”
Vets Recover had a handful of trainings lined up for the next couple of months that the group was planning to cancel, including one set for this weekend. Davis said the group had already canceled this weekend’s workshop before they learned of the reversal.
While it will be rescheduled, the training still won’t happen this weekend.
Still, Davis acknowledged that Vets Recover was in a better position than other mental health nonprofits that would have been forced to lay off staff or even shut down if they lost their grant funding.
“It’s nothing we can’t overcome,” Davis said before he learned the funds were restored. “It just affects our ability to educate the community.”
Alabama was awarded more than $106 million from the substance abuse and mental health services administration in 2025, according to data from the administration.
The majority of those funds are allocated to the Alabama Department of Mental Health, to be awarded through the state agency.
But Alabama’s congressional delegation was largely quiet amid the fury. Rep. Shomari Figures (D-Mobile) was the only member of Alabama’s delegation that signed a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., asking the cuts be reversed.
“Addressing mental health and substance use disorder prevention, treatment and recovery is a bipartisan priority,” the letter said. “The work of SAMHSA is not a partisan priority. It should be a priority for every American, every member of Congress and every administration.”
Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Birmingham) said she was “thrilled” that the cuts were reversed.
“Congresswoman Sewell is thrilled that the Trump Administration bowed to public pressure and reversed its planned cuts to critical mental health and substance use grants,” said Christopher Kosteva, a spokesperson for Sewell. “She will continue fighting to hold the Trump Administration accountable for slashing health care and other funding that Alabama communities rely on while shoveling new tax cuts to billionaires.”
Representatives for the rest of Alabama’s congressional delegation, including Sen. Katie Britt and Sen. Tommy Tuberville, could not be reached for comment.
In Alabama, around 794,000 adults had a mental health condition in 2021, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. But 207,000 of those adults (around 26% of the total) did not receive mental health care that year. Around half said that was due to cost.