Dozens of low-income, older adult and disabled residents in the Chattanooga area have been cut off from in-home services as the federal government shutdown drags on.
The Department of Health and Human Services said it will not distribute billions of dollars through four block grants that provide services to millions of Americans until the government reopens.
“I want people to understand that without this program and the pause that we’re in, we have clients who literally could die,” said Kendra Brabham, a social worker of 25 years and program manager at the Chattanooga-based Partnership for Families, Children, and Adults.
Among the suspended grants is the Social Services Block Grant, which provides a wide range of services to low-income people. Those services include day care, adoption, health-related services and home-delivered meals. The $2.7 billion grant served more than 20 million people in 2022, according to a report from the federal agency that year, the most recent available.
Partnership runs several trauma-informed care programs and receives federal funding for hands-on assistance it provides to 63 older adults and disabled adults in Chattanooga’s 10 surrounding counties.
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On Oct. 29, Kevin Hyde, Partnership’s CEO, said the organization received notice from the federal government that the block grant funding for the Homemaker Program would be suspended Nov. 1 due to the government shutdown.
“I’m not going to lie, it kind of blindsided me,” Brabham said by phone. “It was a shock, and it’s upsetting that we care that little about our elderly and disabled residents in America, and it’s sad.”
Emily Hilliard, press secretary at the Department of Health and Human Services, confirmed the funding had been suspended.
“Due to the Democrat-led shutdown, states will not receive new funds for the Social Services Block Grant,” Hilliard said in an email.
About 116,000 Tennesseans and 121,000 Georgians benefited from the grant in 2022, the report said.
Three other grants from the federal health agency have also been suspended amid the longest federal shutdown in history. Those grants include discretionary child care funds, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the agency’s public affairs office said.
Those suspensions have largely gone unreported as President Donald Trump’s administration has resisted court orders to pay Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, commonly known as food stamps, to 42 million Americans. Those benefits lapsed Nov. 1.
An order issed by a federal judge last week called on the White House to fully fund the nutrition assistance program. But then late Friday, a Supreme Court order granted an emergency request by the Trump administration to halt funding the benefits.
(READ MORE: Due to government shutdown, Hamilton County energy assistance has no 2026 funds)
LIFELINE
On any given day, Brabham and the other Partnership staff she supervises each visit up to five clients in 10 Tennessee counties around Chattanooga. They help with basic but essential tasks like picking up groceries, preparing meals and bathing. Or they’ll meet clients at doctor appointments to help them fill out paperwork or collect prescriptions.
That kind of assistance helps Partnership’s older adult and disabled clients stay in their own homes instead of moving to costly assisted living facilities or losing housing altogether.
“Some of our clients are bed-bound and their family members have to go to work,” Brabham said. “They get up, and they’re there all day, and we’re the only ones coming in to check on them.”
Janet Garver, who is 70 and lives in Chattanooga, is one of Brabham’s clients. Partnership began dispatching a staff member to her home in 2021 to help her care for her husband, Gary Garver.
When he died in 2024, Brabham continued working with Janet Garver, keeping her company through the loneliness and grief of losing her partner of 41 years, ensuring her needs were met. Garver said Brabham is her link to the outside world.
Without Brabham, “I’d probably starve to death,” Garver said with a hollow laugh. “She has done everything for me in the past months. Especially when Gary died, and I was really depressed then for a while. (It’s) still depressing.”
(READ MORE: Chattanooga residents turn to food pantries as nutrition assistance lapses)
LEFT ALONE
Partnership has had to roll back its Homemaker Program services this month in response to the funding lapse.
“We’re keeping minimal staff on,” Hyde said by phone. “We’re staying in touch with (clients). We’re assessing needs, and we’re providing emergency support to them at a much lower level than we would when we were fully funded.”
Danielle Cotton, a public information officer at the Tennessee Department of Human Services, the agency that oversees Social Services Block Grant distributions in the state, said Adult Protective Services is available to respond to emergencies.
“The SSBG providers were asked to call in new APS reports for any SSBG clients who may be in immediate danger in meeting basic needs with the pause of this grant,” Cotton said in an emailed statement. “Referrals to other programs will be made as needed.”
In the days before funding lapsed, Brabham said she tried to double-up on essentials like microwavable meals and adult diapers. She also tried to situate bedridden clients close to the things they might need. Without regular visits, a fall or dehydration could mean they end up in a nursing home, she said.
It costs about $40,000 each month to run the Homemaker Program for Partnership’s 63 active clients. That’s a better value, Hyde said, than the $10,000 per month cost of a moderately-priced assisted living facility,
Brabham jokes that she grew up in a halfway house. When she was a kid, she said her mother always took people in who needed assistance. That led her to social work, first helping children and then older adults, because that’s where the greatest need is, she said.
“We’re all going to get old, and if we don’t get this under control,” Brabham said, “this could be us sitting in that situation waiting for someone to come in and to help us do things that we cannot do for ourselves.”
Contact Report for America corps member Jules Feeney at jfeeney@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6431.
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