AmeriCorps Cuts Hit Programs in Milwaukee and State

MacCanon Brown Homeless Sanctuary. Photo taken January 12th, 2021 by Jeramey Jannene.

Important civic programs and initiatives, operating quietly in the background of communities across the nation, are being disrupted, or disappearing altogether, in the fallout of federal cuts to funding for AmeriCorps.

Thousands of AmeriCorps-funded programs received word in April that their grant funding had been cut after word came down from Elon Musk‘s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been tasked with slashing government spending.

One such program, operated by the Wisconsin Association of Free and Charitable Clinics (WAFCC), will be shuttered as a result of the cuts. The association advocates for and supports the institutional capacity of 89 free and charitable health and wellness clinics across the state, said Domonique Barley, AmeriCorps program director for WAFCC. A number of them, like the McCanon Brown Homeless Sanctuary, are in Milwaukee.

Each year, the WAFCC sends their AmeriCorps members, most of whom are preparing for medical school, out to clinics where they work on outreach, raising awareness of the clinics for people who lack health insurance or access to health care; they support the day-to-day functions of the non-profits where they are stationed, analyzing data or rooming patients at the clinic; they take blood pressure; make referrals for x-rays or dental care; they connect patients to resources for transportation or other government services.

In short, they bolster the institutional capacity of health clinics serving low-income and uninsured patients. Barley said she lacked the words to describe the full scope of the loss, which will ripple across people they serve, as access is reduced, or important referrals aren’t made.

“This is about the effects on people,” Barley said. “It’s not about just the programs. These programs are representations of people.”

There remains some hope the funding will be restored. The State of Wisconsin recently joined two dozen other states suing the federal government over the cuts to AmeriCorps.

In the meantime, important public services and civic functions are disappearing. At the Milwaukee County Courthouse, a program run by the Milwaukee Justice Center (MJC) is already gone.

The MJC’s mission is to expand access to the justice system, said Mark Guzman, who oversaw the MJC AmeriCorps program. The organization offers legal clinics to assist residents in asserting their rights as tenants, navigating child support and family courts, filing in small claims court or having a criminal record expunged.

All of this requires knowing where, when and how to engage the various offices and clerks of the justice system and the Milwaukee County Courthouse. So in 2023, the MJC launched a program using an AmeriCorps grant to help people navigate the courthouse, and to staff an information desk.

Since it began, the navigator program has guided 15,000 people through the courthouse and answered more than 49,000 questions at the information desk, Guzman said. With the program gone, there will be greater confusion for people filing their legal paperwork, or even beginning the filing process.

For example, if someone needs to file a modification for child custody, placement or child support, first thing they have to do at the courthouse is go to room 104, Guzman explained, “Then… they would have to go to room 707 to the court commissioners office… after room 707 they would have to go down to the child support office in room 100, then from room 100 they would have to go to the Sheriff’s Department, which is in a completely different building.”

County Executive David Crowley slammed the AmeriCorps cuts for disrupting the courthouse program, which, he said, will make county government less efficient. He also lamented the erosion of an important national program for young people interested in public service.

“AmeriCorps is critical in fostering the next generation of leaders throughout Milwaukee County,” Crowley said. “I know this is true because AmeriCorps Public Allies was where I learned the foundation of community organizing and found my calling as a public servant.”

For programs in Milwaukee and across the state, the cuts came in the middle of their latest grant period. Many AmeriCorps funded workers are being fired before their contract for the year is up.

Conservation and natural areas projects planned across the state could be disrupted by the grant terminations. On April 25, the Wisconsin Conservation Corps (WCC) Director Eric Robertson, found out their $1.3 million AmeriCorps grant was being cancelled.

The organization’s busy season, summer, is just around the corner and it was preparing to place more than 60 workers around the state, funded in part by the grant. Each summer WCC workers are embedded in land management agencies and parks departments working on habitat restoration, trail construction and other conservation projects on public land.

“Really, we’re there to supply that labor force, through a professional development lens, to get their projects done,” Robertson said.

The partner organizations develop their projects each year assuming the WCC workers will be there to support them. The conservation corps pays 75 cents on the dollar for the cost of all this conservation work. The other 25 cents is covered by the AmeriCorps grant. With the grant funding gone, the WCC will need to find $1.3 million elsewhere.

Voices for National Service, a Washington D.C.-based advocate for national and civic service programs, has estimated that for every $1 in AmeriCorps spending there is a $17 economic return. That return is based on the matching private donations and the value of services rendered, Robertson explained.

In southeastern Wisconsin, the parks departments in Ozaukee, Waukesha and Kenosha counties were expecting WCC workers to assist with their conservation projects. It will be a “struggle” to fulfill all of the commitments the organization has made. But now that the federal government has abandoned them and so many other civic-minded non-profits, they’re still going to try.