Agency for older adults and people with disabilities to be shuttered under HHS cuts (Meals on wheels)

[UpInArms]

With the announcement by the Department of Health and Human Services that it will slash its workforce, consolidate divisions and close regional offices, an agency focused on older adults and people with disabilities has become collateral damage.

The Administration for Community Living will be disbanded and its “critical” programs will be integrated into other HHS agencies such as the Administration for Children and Families, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the HHS said. The department did not say which ACL programs were considered “critical” and which would be eliminated.

“These are programs that truly are lifesaving and critical,” Alison Barkoff, who headed the ACL from 2021 to 2024, told MarketWatch. “Dozens of millions of older adults and people with disabilities may not know the name ACL, but they know senior centers and Meals on Wheels and programs that touch their lives every day.”

… snip …

In fiscal 2022, the ACL provided more than 261 million meals to older adults, assistance such as respite care to more than 1.5 million family caregivers, and independent-living services to nearly 250,000 people with disabilities, Barkoff said.

More at

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/agency-for-older-adults-and-people-with-disabilities-to-be-shuttered-under-hhs-cuts-d0ff3bc2

[BoRaGard]

1. Repubes taking Meals on Wheels from mouths of poor sick elders

so they can give tax cuts to their gourmet golfing billionaire G.O.P. bros - super soul sick.

[SheltieLover]

2. Rotten mofos!

[Bettie]

4. And it isn't just food

for some of the elderly, that's the only human contact they have on a regular basis.

[likesmountains 52]

7. For sure. I deliver meals to 18 people every Monday.

Several plan for me to institute a welfare check if they aren't home when I come. Most are housebound and very lonely.

[blue-wave]

22. That was my very first thought

after my heart sank reading the headline. The meals on wheels delivery person puts a smile on so many faces when the door opens. Eliminating the program is just malicious.

[sakabatou]

3. So, they officially want the elderly and disabled to die

[blubunyip]

5. No other conclusion

Starve them, make their lives harder. Unalive them. It's the Xtian Fascist way.

[IrishBubbaLiberal]

6. Exactly the same as Nazi Germany

Hitler went after the sick, the disabled, the elderly.

Trump is doing the exact same atrocious crap
to Americans that are the most vulnerable.

Sick.
Depravity.

[JoseBalow]

10. Leaves more money in Social Security to steal

All things lead to drumpf's pockets.

[Vinca]

8. I'd suggest they send everyone euthanasia pills, but I'm sure they'd make us pay for them.

[PA Democrat]

9. Donald Trump's nephew quotes Trump as saying, "They (the disabled) should just DIE."

[GardenGnome]

13. Seems to me...

That at this point, Trump makes his own list of sick and elderly people who should just die.

[Evolve Dammit]

19. This is particularly totally fucking DISGUSTING. He is sociopathic even to his RELATIVES. I can do all caps too...

[erronis]

11. I've been delivering MOW for several years and worked with local COAs (Council On Aging)

This is an absolutely devastating blow. Purposefully cruel.

[KDragon]

12. I drove for Meals on Wheels for about a year.

Most of my deliveries were to people who had no one to talk to except the drivers every day. They enjoyed the smile as much as they enjoyed the food.

All the drivers for MoW were volunteers, none of us got paid. We did it because we were decent human beings. Something the so-called efficiency experts cannot understand.

/s/You cant put a dollar figure on the value of compassion, so why try? Save the money for a sexier project, because all those old people are going to die anyway, right? //s//

[moonbeam23]

16. i drove for them too for months

it was a wonderful experience. My mom also got MOW for a long time before she passed. This is literally sickening!

[PA Democrat]

14. There are already massive waiting lists for services for people with disabilities.

Services that allow people with disabilities to live safely, to participate in their communities, to live a life of dignity.

There are many aging parents who have lovingly cared for their adult children with disabilities for years but are now facing the reality that they will not be physically able to do so much longer.

I can tell you from personal experience of the anxiety and fear that the funding, the services that our loved ones need will not be there for them. After all greedy billionaires and soulless tech bros need their tax cuts and the sick gratification they seem to get from their acts of cruelty.

And the cuts to education facilitated by an ignorant Secretary of Education who didn't even know what the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) was will endanger opportunities for future generations of children to reach their fullest potential.

The Republican Party is filled with morally bankrupt degenerates. Because even if they do not support these cuts, they are equally guilty.

Sorry to vent. I'm in a dark place today. 

[Magoo48]

15. Quiet Dems in House and Senate:

This would be a good time to stand up and make some noise. Get together, use this act of cruelty as a source of energy, to shine a light on the fascists. Get out there. Take the press with you. Millions of people know someone who is dependent on Meals on Wheels. talk to them. Ask the public to join you and your fellows on the steps of Congress to condemn this heinous act.

[Paladin]

17. Even this dumbfuck regime is smart enough to realize:

OLD PEOPLE ARE DANGEROUS, BECAUSE THEY VOTE.

The more damage they can do to the elderly population, the better off they think they'll be. It ain't Elon Musk-level rocket science.

Democratic leadership: Where the fuck are you????

[Evolve Dammit]

18. Obscene and disgusting. Turn your back on Americans in need GOP. PS: FU

[OldBaldy1701E]

20. But that is the thing.

The rethugs despise 'community living'. That is when people get together and talk and share ideas and develop strong connections and stronger communities. How can they exploit every single person on the planet if we keep gathering to figure out what to do about them?

[calimary]

21. Shit! Heartless fucks.

[AllaN01Bear]

23. how many times must they cut this thing like acron? over and over andover again.

[pfitz59]

24. A friend works in the program in SF

He is the sweetest, most giving person. I hate Trump!

[bucolic_frolic]

25. Anyone tallying up the financial damage to their family's lives?

I mean, here is old age support, meals. Not everyone can afford to replace these services in the private market. Say $10 a day for a lunch that often doubles as dinner?

How about the cost of vehicles? Tariffs raise prices, foreign and domestic vehicles. $6000 to 15000 each?

Our country is being destroyed. And that's not counting the cost of worry.

[crimycarny]

26. Saw this on bsky -- very compelling article

‪Lindsay Lee Wallace‬ ‪@lindsayleewallace.bsky.social‬
·
RFK Jr's move to eliminate the Administration for Community Living, which helps disabled & aging people stay at home instead of being institutionalized, is disastrous.
I'm never done shouting about what my mom's institutionalization took from her & from us (so here's my
@teenvogue.com piece again).

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/success-grief-dead-mom-university

[Nanjeanne]

27. It's all about the cruelty. But I just don't understand how we have a government with no apparent

guardrails that allows these things to simply happen.