NEW YORK — A top Democrat slammed the Trump administration late Wednesday for creating “uncertainty and confusion” in cutting thousands of substance abuse and mental health grants and then abruptly reversing course.
House Appropriations Committee Ranking Member Rep. Rosa DeLauro described Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s decision-making as dangerous and haphazard after grant recipients began laying off employees based on the original plans.
“He must be cautious when making decisions that will impact Americans’ health,” DeLauro, D-Conn., said in a statement. “I hope this reversal serves as a lesson learned.”
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration on Tuesday night had canceled some 2,000 grants representing nearly $2 billion in funding, according to an administration official with knowledge of the cuts who was not authorized to discuss them publicly.
But by Wednesday evening, those cuts were being reversed, according to reports in The New York Times, NPR, The Washington Post and others.
Grant recipients who had their funding canceled on Tuesday told The Associated Press they hadn’t yet received word of the reinstatements. Some had already made difficult decisions in response to the cuts, including laying off employees and canceling scheduled trainings.
The reason for the reversal wasn’t immediately clear, and spokespeople for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services didn’t respond to requests for comment Wednesday night.
The grant cancellations had pulled back funding for a wide swath of discretionary grants and represented about a quarter of SAMHSA’s overall budget. They built on other, wide-ranging cuts that have been made at HHS, including the elimination of thousands of jobs and the freezing or canceling of billions of dollars for scientific research.
The cuts had thrown into jeopardy programs that give direct mental health services, opioid treatment, drug prevention resources, peer support and more to communities affected by addiction, mental illness and homelessness.
“Without that funding, people are going to lose access to lifesaving services,” Yngvild Olsen, former director of SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and a national adviser at Manatt Health, said earlier Wednesday.
SAMHSA, a sub-agency of HHS, notified grant recipients that their funding would be canceled effective immediately in emailed letters on Tuesday evening, according to several copies received by organizations and reviewed by The Associated Press.
The letters, signed by SAMHSA Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Christopher Carroll, justified the terminations using a regulation that says the agency may terminate any federal award that “no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities.”
Grant recipients who were notified of the cancellations said they were confused by that explanation and didn’t get any further detail about why the agency felt their work didn’t match up with SAMHSA’s priorities.
“The goal of our grants is entirely in line with the priorities listed in that letter,” said Jamie Ross, CEO of the Las Vegas-based PACT Coalition, a community organization focused on substance use issues that lost funding from three grants totaling $560,000.
Organizations reeling from the news on Wednesday told the AP they had already been forced to cut staff and cancel trainings. In the long term, many had been considering whether they could keep programs alive by shuffling them to different funding sources or whether they’d need to stop the services altogether.
Robert Franks, CEO of the Boston-based mental health provider the Baker Center for Children and Families, which was told Tuesday it was losing two federal grants totaling $1 million, said Wednesday afternoon that the loss of funding would force his organization to lay off staff and put care in jeopardy for some 600 families receiving it.
One of his organization’s canceled grants had been awarded through the National Child Traumatic Stress Initiative, a more than 20-year-old program supporting specialized care for children who have been through traumatic events ranging from sexual abuse to school violence.
Franks said his organization’s work directly advances SAMHSA’s goals to address mental illness. He said trauma care provided to children through his organization helps people from all walks of life and reduces burdens on other parts of society. He could not be reached late Wednesday to respond to the news of the grant reinstatements.
Both Ross and Ryan Hampton, founder of the advocacy nonprofit Mobilize Recovery, told the AP they hadn’t yet been notified of any reversal to the grant cuts they’d been notified of Tuesday night.
The National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors, a group that represents local organizations that deliver safety net services, sent a letter to its members on Wednesday noting that multiple of its partners estimated the slashed grants totaled around 2,000 and likely amounted to some $2 billion. The group said the funding pullbacks appeared to focus on grants classified as Programs of Regional and National Significance.
The group said it believed certain block grants, 988 suicide and crisis lifeline funding and Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics were spared from the cuts.
