Meals on Wheels sounding the alarm on fed cuts: '400,000 meals go away'

PORTLAND, Ore. (KOIN) — Leadership with Meals on Wheels is sounding the alarm after another wave of Health and Human Services cuts, concerned their funding could be impacted.

This week Meals on Wheels learned that 40% of the Administration for Community Living staff had been cut. CEO Suzanne Washington said that department deals directly with the funding that Meals on Wheels uses to serve people across the Portland metro area. Without those workers, there are concerns Meals on Wheels will not be able to get the money it relies on.

“All the people who understand the program, serve the program, have the expertise to deal with the issues that we deal with every day and make sure the funding gets to the people they're gone,” Washington said. “So that's the worry. If all the people getting those dollars out and managing the program are gone, who's going to do it now?”

Federal funds make up around 35% of the Meals on Wheels budget, which Washington said comes out to a lot of food.

“If that funding goes away, 400,000 meals go away,” she said. “And so that's the impact, right? If we also lost Medicaid dollars, which is also in the conversation, there's another right, 200,000 meals.”

She said they have talked with the National Nutrition Provider organization and the counties they contract with, but nobody seems to know what will happen next. Washington said she has been hearing from a lot of people who are afraid.

“Are they still going to get meals,” she said. “Are they going to get fed? How are they going to live if these funds go away? And that's the hardest part, that people with disabilities and seniors that are living just on the margins anyway, without our assistance, they then have nothing to eat.”

Even in this uncertain time, Washington said they are staying the course.

“We're going to make sure we continue to feed people,” she said. We will pull from emergency funding as needed. I don't want all those we serve to worry any time soon. We have to make sure we find other ways to raise dollars. We have to find ways to make sure nobody goes on a waitlist. We've never had a waitlist.”

Washington said if you want to help, they could always use more volunteers, and they rely heavily on donations. Meals on Wheels has more information on how to help.