A good friend and partner who runs a grassroots community non-profit in rural Oʻahu approached me a few weeks ago. The consistent recipient of significant Federal funding over many years to support Native Hawaiian services—particularly for underserved children, those monies were recently pulled, abruptly and completely. After already letting two-thirds of her staff go, she still faces a 50% shortfall for her remaining operating annual budget. But what echoes in my mind from that interaction was her toughness, her complete lack of desperation. She was determined, defiant even, in the face of her organization’s uncertainty. She will find a way to keep her operations going, because she believes in the importance of them to her community. She believes in her community. She is community. She will find a way and we will help her.
It will likely get harder before it gets better. As if things weren’t already difficult for our communities, now a Federal government shutdown. During a conference last week, Governor Green shared that Hawaiʻi is losing approximately $6 million a day while shutdown. He has issued an emergency proclamation to bolster food resources, and to place a moratorium on housing evictions. Local partners such as Hawaiʻi Food Bank are also activating partners in an effort to increase food availability in light of $200 billion in national cuts to Food Assistance programs. The Governor is also entertaining access to the Emergency and Budget Reserve Fund (i.e., the Rainy Day Fund) which currently holds approximately $1.56 billion in assets. In the meantime, he is attempting to lock in Federal aid to support rural health and has also requested $1 billion in housing funds from Federal sources.
While “essential” Federal employees remain active, they are not being paid. Under these circumstances in the past, these workers would expect to receive back pay once the government was again operational. But these days, nothing is normal, and this administration is discussing no back pay and even permanent reductions in force. The remainder of our local Federal workforce is now furloughed with out-of-office messages that read “Due to a lapse in appropriations, I am currently in a furlough status. I will respond to emails once government functions resume.” Frustratingly, these positions include those that would be administering funds to our partners. Overall, this shutdown is affecting 24,000 civilian employees and another 44,000 active-duty service members in Hawai’i, which equates to 75,000 households at risk. The USAA, a military-affiliated lending institution has provided $248M in zero interest loans this past week alone to its 67,000 members to provide some security in deeply uncertain times. Through personal communication, these contacts have shared with us that the longer the government is closed, it is likely it will remain closed for a prolonged period of time. While no one’s crystal ball is clear, some suspect closure through the end of the calendar year is possible, if not likely.
According to a recently-released UHERO report, Hawaiʻi is saddled with $126 million in unpaid balances from Federal Sources with concentrated risk to programs specifically meant to benefit Native Hawaiians. In this moment, $89 million in promised Federal funds is now uncertain for Fiscal Year 2025, and looking ahead, an additional $191 million is at-risk for Fiscal Year 2026. Federal cuts are estimated to impact 500,000 Hawaiʻi residents, as well as the 12% of Hawaii’s workforce that is within the non-profit sector, and the 2,200 locally based Federal employees that continue to face threats of layoffs while they currently sit idle in furlough. You can hear our very own President, Alex Harris share about these impacts on a recent KITV News segment. The UHERO report was commissioned by the Hawaii Community Foundation to help guide the re-opening of its Hawaii Resilience Fund which we are pleased to have helped co-launch alongside HCF. The purpose of the fund is to pool resources toward coordinated, targeted support and services to threatened non-profit organizations not only in the form of financial support but also legal expertise, technical assistance, and collective advocacy.
Now is the time for those of us with funds to prepare to deploy them quickly however possible, take strategic risks beyond our grantmaking priorities wherever appropriate, and, most of all, trust in our partners. We will continue to urge giving to initiatives that can coordinate assistance and stretch limited resources. As soon as they are ready, we will share the results of our work with the Hawaiʻi Data Collaborative and their partners to map out Federal funding flow breakdowns to Hawaii’s non-profit subsectors at greater granularity, so all of us can be quicker and smarter on how to push on. As the embodiment of our community’s strength and resilience, we all must make sure our partners do not shutter.
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