In West Virginia, a nonprofit mental health program for teenage girls is turning to a private donor to help cover its expenses. Three Virginia health clinics have shut their doors. And a network of health centers in rural Mississippi is facing a deficit of $500,000 and may have to scale back services. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Across the country, health clinics and nonprofit organizations largely serving rural and low-income patients have found themselves unable to access previously allocated federal funds, as <\/strong>a short-lived government funding freeze<\/a> has continued to disrupt daily operations for a range of programs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The disruption appears to stem from a vaguely worded, two-page memo<\/a> the Office of Management and Budget sent to all federal agencies early last week directing them to \u201ctemporarily pause all activities related to obligation or disbursement of all Federal financial assistance\u201d that could conflict with President Donald Trump\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A judge quickly <\/strong>blocked the action\u2002<\/a>last week, and the Justice Department said in a filing Wednesday that agencies are working through the process of issuing all appropriate funding disbursements. But some organizations say they are still unable to access money they urgently need to pay for salaries, utilities, supplies and other expenses \u2014 threatening their ability to continue operating in their communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe are continuing to hear from nonprofits that are unable to access the funding that they need to continue their programs and to continue paying their staff,\u201d said Diane Yentel, CEO of the National Council of Nonprofits, which was part of a lawsuit filed to block the funding freeze. \u201cIt\u2019s clear that the confusion and the chaos that the directive unleashed hasn\u2019t ended, despite it being rescinded and despite the temporary restraining orders from two different courts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yentel said much of the funding that the groups are unable to access is coming from programs administered by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). While some organizations haven\u2019t had any issues withdrawing their funds since the memo directing the funding freeze was rescinded, dozens of others<\/a> have been unable to draw down money from the web payment system that manages their federal grants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A spokesperson for <\/strong>HHS acknowledged that some grant recipients have experienced issues accessing their federal funds and attributed the delays to technical issues the agency\u2019s website has been having. A <\/strong>high volume of requests has come in since the website was temporarily offline last week following the funding freeze.<\/p>\n\n\n\n HHS is working to \u201chelp expedite resolutions as quickly as possible,\u201d the spokesperson said in a statement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Health clinics and nonprofits serving low-income patients say there is little wiggle room in their budget to cover their costs without federal assistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Community health centers, also known as federally qualified health centers, rely on federal grants for part of their funding in order to provide medical care, dental, behavioral health and substance use disorder services to more than 32 million Americans. That makes for 1 in 5 rural Americans\u2002<\/a>and 1 in 3 people living in poverty, according to the National Association of Community Health Centers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Virginia, 11 of the state\u2019s 31 community health center operators were still unable to access their funding as of Thursday morning, said Joe Stevens, a spokesperson for the Virginia Community Healthcare Association. One of those providers has had to close three of its clinics in Richmond and has been directing patients to its other locations. Another clinic in rural southwestern Virginia is at risk of cutting back services or closing if its funding doesn\u2019t come through in the next two weeks, said Stevens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf a health center closes in rural Virginia, for many people that is their primary source of health care, there are no hospitals nearby, no emergency centers nearby,\u201d said Stevens. <\/p>\n\n\n\n