Community Agencies Affected by Proposed Federal Budget

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The Trump administration’s budget blueprint released last week would ax grants that help fund a multitude of local programs serving the poor, the elderly, and the disabled. The cuts are part of a plan to add 54 billion dollars to the nation’s defense budget. On the chopping block are a three- billion-dollar national energy assistance program known as LIHEAP, and three billion dollars in Community Development Block Grants, known as CDBG. Also to be sacrificed are Community Services Block Grants, which fund 715 million dollars of programs across the nation.

Area 10 Agency on Aging and the South Central Community Action Program are just two area agencies whose clients could be hard hit. ReporterSarah Vaughan spoke with Kerry Conway, the CEO of Area 10 Agency on Aging; and Doug Wilson, Director of Communications for the South Central Community Action Program, about the impact the budget cuts would have on their clients. We begin with Kerry Conway of Area 10 Agency on Aging.