GRAND RAPIDS — A northeastern Minnesota nonprofit is asking the community to speak up in support of "life-changing" federal funding at risk of being cut or eliminated entirely.
KOOTASCA Community Action said cuts are proposed to programs that support energy assistance and local businesses and help families with their basic needs, including finding or keeping stable housing.
“These are really life-changing dollars,” said Alice Moren, KOOTASCA community engagement director, in a recent KAXE Morning Show interview alongside interim Executive Director Marta Carrigan.
The organization serves Itasca and Koochiching counties through affordable housing development, crisis housing, homeownership assistance, energy assistance and weatherization, early childhood education and food assistance.
“The focus of our work is alleviating and eliminating poverties,” Carrigan said. “We meet people’s basic needs: food, shelter, heat, child care, human connection. All of those are things that we make sure people have access to.”
President Donald Trump’s budget proposal would eliminate the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program or LIHEAP and the Community Services Block Grant and significantly reduce funding for the Department of Housing and Urban Development, including cuts to community development programs and those that aim to help housing assistance recipients become self-sufficient.
The LIHEAP cuts amount to $4 billion, the block grant cuts to $770 million and the HUD cuts to $34 billion across nine programs or about 44% of the department’s budget.
Congress is still working on spending bills; there's been some discussion of funding programs that Trump wants slashed, but there have been no formal decisions, Carrigan told KAXE via email Monday, Aug. 4.
LIHEAP helps families stay warm in winter and cool in summer, KOOTASCA said. According to the organization, the program helped over 133,000 Minnesota households in 2023, preventing more than 95,000 utility shutoffs. The Trump administration said it would instead support low-income individuals “through energy dominance, lower prices, and an America First economic platform.”
KOOTASCA said the Community Services Block Grant is one of the most effective tools for fighting poverty. The Trump administration asserts programs in the departments of labor or agriculture would better help those in need.
The various HUD programs help families avoid eviction, support first-time homebuyers, help end homelessness and more, KOOTASCA said. Most programs are better suited for state or local governments, Trump’s budget proposal states.
But Moren and Carrigan pointed to cuts already impacting local governments, hospitals and other entities that will have to meet more community needs if funds KOOTASCA relies on are cut.
Carrigan gave three ways for the community to support KOOTASCA.
“Be educated,” Carrigan said first. “Look at our website, follow our social media. Make sure you have a picture of what we do.”
Then, Carrigan said, share that information and help educate others.
“Third is contact your legislators,” she said.
“Let them know that this is important, that you want the community supported. We all have a voice in how our dollars should be spent, and we hope people will take the opportunity to speak up and vocalize that support.”
Moren said people who come to KOOTASCA are already in a tough spot, “And I just cannot kind of wrap my head around that being worse.”
“I don’t think that the community or people in general recognize the amount of need that’s there and what’s currently being met and what it would look like if that was gone,” she said. “Because the needs aren’t going to disappear.”
