For many in the Jewish community, the federal government shutdown, now almost one month long, is much more than a political issue or talking point.
Some feel it on a more personal level. They might be furloughed from their federal job. They may have a loved one who is dealing with the suspension of essential services. Maybe some people’s grandchildren weren’t able to access a national park for a camping weekend they had planned for months.
For many in Baltimore’s Jewish nonprofit world, the shutdown means they may have a harder time helping out the most vulnerable members of society at a time when they need it most.
Joan Grayson Cohen is the executive director of Jewish Community Services, and she said that one group that she sees being affected by a lingering shutdown is older adults in the Jewish community.
“Their anxiety levels and their stress levels have really risen, and their concerns about everything that you read in the paper about Social Security and Medicare coverage and health insurance has also gone up. A lot of older adults are on fixed incomes, and so they depend on the variety of the benefits that they’re receiving, and if those should change even slightly, it affects their ability to pay their bills,” Grayson Cohen said.
She said this has led to clients facing hard decisions, such as choosing between food and medicine, for example. Some older adults even had to go back to work, either in their former careers or in part-time, entry-level jobs, because they couldn’t rely on the federal benefits they previously thought would provide enough money to live on.
Chana Baltimore is a nonprofit that provides services to victims of domestic violence, elder abuse and other kinds of mistreatment. They also lead preventative education work in the community.
Executive Director Lauren Shaivitz said that, while its operations have not been affected too negatively in terms of budget cuts, the group is facing logistical problems. Chana requires federal approval to conduct much of its work because that work is largely done with federal dollars.
“There’s nobody there to be able to approve this [work],” she said. “We are still going ahead and doing the work — it’s just we’re not able to get the funding to really pay us and reimburse us for the work, because we haven’t been able to get the prior authorization that they require. And so again, it is not deterring us from doing the work, but it is deterring our ability to be able to use the federal funds that have been given to us.”
At JCS, the problems and stress extend beyond complications in providing services. The shutdown and general state of the economy and nation are impacting the staff, too.
“[The staff is] living [with] a lot of the stress that our clients are living [with]. So, trying to serve while you’re also experiencing the stress has become more challenging. It leads to burnout after a while,” Grayson Cohen said. “We’ve done a lot of things to support our staff around that, and just the volume of people who come forward and the issues that they’re bringing all compound the challenge of the work, which is amazing work, but challenging work. So, this creates additional concerns for our staff as well.”
Some days, she said, JCS leaders give people days off unprompted. Grayson Cohen said a day away from the work that JCS does is necessary to preserve the personal batteries of the organization’s staff members.
As for public need, Grayson Cohen said that it will increase if the shutdown doesn’t end.
She used the SNAP program, commonly known as food stamps, as an example. Just this week, President Donald Trump’s administration announced SNAP benefits won’t go out as scheduled on Nov. 1.
“If SNAP benefits go away, we would anticipate that we’re going to see more people turning to us for food assistance. Similarly, people continue not to be able to pay their rents, and they may be turning to us for eviction prevention dollars,” Grayson Cohen said. “The demand will increase, and human service agencies like ours will not have the resources or funding to be able to help people.”
For Shaivitz and Chana Baltimore, demand for services exploded during the COVID pandemic and hasn’t let up since. Shaivitz said the situation could get worse if the shutdown continues, but her organization has seen a consistent onslaught since 2020.
“Even if the numbers are staying somewhat flat, our clients are experiencing more danger and more difficult times trying to leave abusive relationships, because there’s just such a lack of resources and so much competition for the same resources,” she said.
Grayson Cohen said that, right now, the situation is especially bad for certain groups of people, but that everyone is hurting.
“I think it’s important for people to hear that the state that we’re in right now is affecting everyone. It doesn’t really matter where you sit in the economic strata; people are impacted. Federal employees were at all sorts of levels of jobs,” she said. “People can really relate, because it’s not just a certain class that is struggling. It’s all of us in some ways — whether it’s the mental health piece, the actual financial piece or whether it’s someone that has to look for a new job. It’s a time when people really can understand the challenges that we’re all facing.” ■
