•May 3, 2017•

By Trudy Lieberman
Rural Health News Service

Federal funding for meals on wheels is on the chopping block. The Trump administration budget blueprint released in March calls for the elimination of two federal block grants: That’s money the federal government gives the states for social welfare programs, and those programs include home-delivered meals and meals served in senior centers.

Most of the nation’s 5,000 meal programs also rely on money from the Older Americans Act passed in 1965 to fund about 35 percent of the cost of the meals they serve. Those funds are also in jeopardy. The budget blueprint calls for an 18 percent cut to the budget of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which administers the Act, and programs are bracing for more cuts.

Paul Kraintz who heads the senior nutrition program at Meals on Wheels in Martinez, California, says while his program would lose about $67,000 it now gets from one of the block grants, he’s really worried about the potential budget cut at HHS. “If they take 18 percent of that, it’s going to be big.”      Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.