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Federal cuts freeze United Way food, housing funding for Tri-Cities families

Cuts to the Federal Emergency Management Agency have frozen funds used to keep Tri-Cities families from losing their place to live. The United Way of Benton and Franklin Counties said Thursday that their access to funding for the federal Emergency Food and Shelter Program has been shut off. Since 2020 FEMA has allocated more than $1.4 million through the United Way to help Tri-Cities families with food and to stay in their homes or find a new place to live, according to a news release. The nonprofit currently has $143,706 in funding for 28 grant requests frozen, leading to an immediate impact for these organizations. Without access to this money, the loss of funding will affect food banks, after-school meal programs, housing assistance efforts and programs to help Tri-Citians meet other basic needs. In the past year the program has provided $5.4 million dollars in funding across Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Community Impact Director Asta Bonheyo told the Tri-City Herald that the program helped more than 44,000 families during the COVID-19 pandemic. United Way takes applications for grant funding from local nonprofits and then makes funding requests from FEMA. Their last request, made in January, still has not been disbursed. Bonheyo said the loss of that funding means smaller food banks that meet people where they are won't be able to help as many families, local agencies that provide rental assistance won't be able to do so and eviction prevention programs might not have the money to help keep families from losing their housing. 'It's a really important program for our community, it helps a lot of people,' she said. United Way is asking community members to urge members of Congress to restore EFSP funding and protect critical services for community members in need. They've created a Call to Action form to contact Washington lawmakers. Donations to the organization can also be made on their website. The EFSP funding is just part of United Way's grant programs helping Tri-Cities families. Some of the other community organizations that the United Way of Benton and Franklin Counties provided grants to recently, include: Benton Franklin Head Start 2nd Harvest SARC Tri-Cities Diaper Bank B5 Learning Center Heartlinks Hospice and Palliative Care The Children's Reading Foundation of the Mid-Columbia