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  • 2017-03-16 (xsd:date)
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  • Did President Trump Announce Plans to End the 'Meals on Wheels' Program? (en)
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  • On 15 March 2017, the web site Occupy Democrats published an article about a blueprint budget released by the Trump administration under the sensationalized title Trump Just Announced Plan to End ‘Meals on Wheels’ for Seniors. Although the text of the article was largely accurate, the clickbait headline misled many readers into believing that President Trump had specifically proposed to eliminate Meals on Wheels, a service that delivers meals to individuals at home (primarily seniors) who are unable to purchase or prepare meals for themselves. However, President Trump's blueprint budget does not mention or target Meals on Wheels, nor would the adoption of that budget spell the end of Meals on Wheels. Rather, the blueprint contained a section proposing the elimination of funding for the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program: The Community Development Block Grand Program is used to fund a variety of community projects by providing grants to state and local governments, who then allocate the funds to city programs (of which Meals on Wheels is one example): As CNN noted, one example of how the federal CDBG program works is as follows: The elimination of the federal CDBG program would reduce local funding for a number of programs, including Meals on Wheels, but the overall impact on the program is uncertain. According to the Meals on Wheels 2015 annual report, the majority of the national office's funding (about 84%) comes from individual contributions, while only 3% comes from federal grants such as the CDBG program provides: Meals on Wheels explained in a clarifying statement that their 5,000 local, community-based programs receive 35% of their total funding from the federal government through the Older Americans Act, and that some local chapters also receive funding from the Community Development Block Grant: Although President Trump's blueprint budget specifically stated that it would eliminate the CDBG, local Meals on Wheels groups would still receive federal funding through the Older Americans Act. However, the budget plan also proposes a nearly 18% cut to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and this could also potentially reduce the amount of funding local groups receive via the Older Americans Act: All in all, some local Meals on Wheels groups will likely have to make up revenue shortfalls through alternative sources or cut back on their services if funding cuts are made to the CDBG program and HHS, but the national Meals on Wheels program itself won't be shut down. (en)
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