DOGE cuts mental health funding for homeless children, youth in Nevada, officials say

Yahoo

23-04-2025

Elon Musk at a cabinet meeting at the White House April 10. (Photo by)
Elon Musk took his chainsaw last month to federal grants for mental health – including two that provide free mental health counseling to youth in Elko and Humboldt Counties, where access to such services is scarce, according to UNLV's Dr. Dan Allen, director and principal investigator of the Nevada Rural Mental Health Outreach Program (RHOP). DOGE also eliminated another grant for the mental health needs of homeless children.
Allen says he was notified of the cuts via a letter last month from the Nevada Division of Public and Behavioral Health (DPBH).
Eliminated grants include those awarded to UNLV Partnership for Research, Assessment, Counseling, Therapy and Innovative Clinical Education (PRACTICE), a mental health clinic at UNLV that provides care to populations that have difficulty accessing help, and turns out trained mental health providers in the process.
Those programs are just a few of the mental health treatment services terminated by President Donald Trump's administration on March 24. Others, according to a letter from Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto to Health and Human Services Sec. Robert F. Kennedy, include 'crisis support hotlines, community-based initiatives, peer support services, and workforce training to support individuals in crisis and ensure continuity of care.'
'Preliminary calculations show about $8.4 million was terminated under pandemic-era additions to the community mental health services block grant,' Jesse Stone of DPBH said via email Tuesday. 'This number is subject to change as we receive final requests from reimbursements from our partners that were receiving grants at the time that funds were rescinded.'
Trump's administration hopes to save $11.4 billion by eliminating COVID-era funding for addiction and mental health.
'These grants were issued for a limited purpose: To ameliorate the effects of the pandemic,' says the termination notice from Trump's administration. 'The end of the pandemic provides cause to terminate COVID-related grants. Now that the pandemic is over, the grants are no longer necessary.'
The pandemic exposed multiple shortcomings in health care services and programs nationally, not least with respect to accessing affordable mental and behavioral health care.
Nevada suffered from a dearth of mental health professionals and services prior to the pandemic, and continues to do so even though the pandemic has ended.
One of the RHOP programs that is losing funding provided telehealth services to youth in their own school setting, with the assistance of Communities in Schools, a nonprofit organization dedicated to fulfilling the needs of Nevada students.
'We're also providing services to kids who need more intensive care,' Allen explained, through a clinical program for youth at high-risk for psychosis, and for those with early bipolar disorder.
'Our community is plagued with mental illness,' Elko resident Morgan Pavao, who serves as a site coordinator for Communities in Schools in Northeastern Nevada, said via email. 'I have lost family and loved ones to suicide every year because we live in a community where mental health is not only ignored, but stigmatized. This program is saving lives and we cannot afford to lose it.'
Gov. Joe Lombardo, who emphasized a commitment to mental health matters in his State of the State speech in January, did not respond to requests for comment on whether he plans to replace the programs with state funding.
The grants for services provided by UNLV PRACTICE were funded by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), says Dr. Michelle Paul, executive director of UNLV PRACTICE.
The funding, awarded in 2023, 'enabled UNLV PRACTICE to significantly expand its existing telehealth services, allowing us to offer year-round care and screening for high-risk youth in Northeastern Nevada,' Paul said, adding she learned in March the funding was terminated, effective immediately. 'With the sudden cessation of funding, services for approximately two-thirds of participants were affected immediately. Thanks to a generous donor, we were able to soften the landing for those youth and their families during the abrupt transition.'
Services for the remaining one-third of students 'have been temporarily sustained through short-term institutional support from UNLV and are expected to conclude in May,' Paul said, adding the cuts are also taking a toll on post-graduate training and support opportunities for future mental health care providers in training at UNLV PRACTICE.
The telehealth services provided care to 35 students this semester, says Liz Carrasco, the program's clinical director. 'Last semester we had 150 students,' she said, adding the loss of the grants comes as residents in both counties are recovering from teen suicides earlier this year. Suicide has long been among the leading causes of death for Nevadans aged 8-17 and 18-24, according to the Office of Suicide Prevention.
Students are referred to the program by school counselors, administrators, or social workers, and complete an 'extensive referral packet' that helps UNLV determine whether telehealth counseling is appropriate, says Alexandra Paredes, a Winnemucca resident who coordinates the program on behalf of Communities in Schools.
Students, she says, call their clinician their ''person.' They're always asking 'when do I speak with my person?' They form a very strong bond.'
The grants were slated to run out at the end of September, says Allen, who says he'll apply for block grants as an alternative.
'All that funding has been cut back, so I'm not sure what's going to be available,' he said during a phone interview Monday. 'But that's our climate.'
DOGE also eliminated a grant funded via ARPA that was to be administered beginning in September by UNLV's Education Department and run through UNLV PRACTICE for the benefit of homeless youth. Efforts are underway to find alternative funding, Allen and Paul said.
The lost funding across all three grants amounts to about $634,000, according to Paul.
'The State of Nevada has received approximately $15 million in Community Health Services Block Grant funding from the American Rescue Plan since it was passed,' Lauren Wodarski, spokesperson for Cortez Masto, said via email. 'The Trump Administration has yet to offer concrete details on specifically how much of that funding has been frozen or rescinded – and Senator Cortez Masto is continuing to push for answers.'
The Reno Gazette Journal reported earlier this month that Renown Health suspended mental health services at its Crisis Care Center in Reno after the federal government terminated its grant funding last month.
Cortez Masto, in the letter to Kennedy, demanded answers about the rationale for terminating block grant funding for Nevada's mental health services months before it was set to expire.
'This abrupt decision to cut critical, already-allocated funding is alarming and poses a direct threat to the mental health and well-being of Nevadans,' Cortez Masto wrote of the cuts, which were made the same day the UNLV PRACTICE programs were eliminated and were also set to expire in September.
Cortez Masto wants to know whether HHS analyzed the effects of ending the funding prematurely; what the federal government is doing to sustain the affected programs; how the government will avoid gaps and delays in care for individuals currently in treatment; and what alternative funding sources are available for the state.
'We're of course disappointed by this loss of funding, as these programs provided momentum to UNLV PRACTICE's ability to deliver crucial mental health services to rural communities in Nevada while training the next generation of providers,' she said, adding the clinic remains 'committed to delivering high-quality and accessible programs to residents in our community and throughout Nevada.'