Leaders from various organizations in California's north coast met with Democratic Representative Jared Huffman for a virtual roundtable Monday. They discussed how much they rely on federal funding for just about everything.
Some of the more obvious targets for cuts are housing, healthcare and food assistance programs. But even wildfire prevention and recovery programs could face cuts. Jill Demers is executive director for the Humboldt Resource Conservation District, which manages fuels reduction projects.
鈥淲e鈥檝e been told that it鈥檚 in our best interest to reduce spending right now while looking forward," she said.
Most organizations said they could only last a couple months at most if they lost federal funding.
Kerry Venegas from Changing Tides Family Services in Humboldt County said cuts to programs like child care assistance would have major impacts.
鈥淚n our county alone that鈥檚 over 1,500 kids, almost 1,000 families immediately would have a cessation," she said.
The efforts by the White House to eliminate any diversity and inclusion funding could hurt assistance programs that help the most vulnerable.
Representative Huffman noted that one order called for freezing any funding for so-called 鈥淢arxist鈥� programs.
鈥淚f we are trying to redistribute resources to help people at the lower end economically, it鈥檚 not hard to imagine some political appointee from DOGE or somewhere else saying, 鈥楾hat feels kinda Marxist, kinda Socialist,鈥欌�� Huffman said.
Huffman said that rural communities will be impacted the most by cuts to federal funding.
He said he鈥檒l be taking what he鈥檚 heard from constituents to Washington to show how these efforts are doing more harm than good.
