Budget cuts
Memphis could also lose more than $2.5 million, and the county $305,779, from the elimination of the HOME Investment Partnerships Program, which partially funds a number of local Community Development Corporations.
Eliminating the grants is part of a broader plan to cut $6.2 billion from the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which could also mean the loss of $5 million in capital funding and additional operating dollars to the Memphis Housing Authority.
Trump also proposes eliminating all federal funding for a number of other programs with a local impact, including Meals on Wheels, the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, the Minority Business Development Agency and the Legal Services Corp, and to trim funding for the nutritional aid program for women, infants and children (WIC).
Harrison McIver, executive director and chief executive officer of Memphis Area Legal Services, which provides free services in civil cases to people in Fayette, Lauderdale, Shelby and Tipton counties, said about 40 percent of the organization’s budget comes from Legal Services Corporation.
Under the proposed cuts, the organization, already experiencing high demand, would not be able to maintain staffing levels, he said. The cuts would impact the work the group does with veterans, domestic-violence victims and the elderly.
“It would have a tremendous impact,” he said.
The cuts outlined in the budget, titled “America First: A Budget Blueprint to Make America Great Again,” would go into effect July 1, 2018, with congressional approval. The cuts wouldn’t affect funding already in place by then.
In public statements and in his introductory letter to the budget Thursday, Trump cast the cuts as a necessary change in the nation’s priorities. His proposed budget increases military spending by 10 percent, or $54 billion, without adding to the federal deficit — a feat accomplished with “targeted reductions” that include deep cuts in spending, especially in the areas of the environment, foreign aid, arts, health and housing.
“A budget that puts America first must make the safety of our people its number one priority — because without safety, there can be no prosperity,” Trump said in the budget introduction.
Lee Mills, chairman of the Republican Party of Shelby County, said Trump is making the "hard choices" for a country $20 trillion in debt, just as he promised.
"For far too long, politicians have 'kicked the can' down the road," Mills said. "President Trump’s budget proposal is a pragmatic approach to reining in discretionary spending."
But in Memphis, the loss of grants and programs would “change the way we do business,” Memphis Housing and Community Development director Paul Young said. He said the city will work to identify other funding sources to minimize the impact if the cuts win congressional approval.
“We believe we would be able to close the gap, but it’s going to take a lot of work in the administration,” Young said. He added: “I think we can do it — but we don’t quite know how yet.”
In a statement Thursday, U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, said the budget “cuts vital programs for many Americans and will send America back to the 1950s, a time which might be revered by President Trump but was not so rosy for women, minorities and low-income Americans.”
The cuts to HUD could be “devastating” to the Memphis Housing Authority, MHA Director Marcia Lewis said last week after preliminary budget documents surfaced. Lewis was still reviewing the proposed budget Thursday morning but previously said the cuts could spell disaster for its housing communities for senior citizens and the disabled.
The CDBGs would have a minimal impact on MHA — mostly a loss in matching funds from HCD for future projects, she said. Also eliminated: The Choice Neighborhood program, which is providing much of the funding for the $210 million South City project to transform the former Foote Homes and Cleaborn Pointe.
CDBGs are some of the most “flexible” grants, Young said. The city has used the grants to secure Section 108 loans for the redevelopment of the Memphis Pyramid, Sears Crosstown and the project at the intersection of Union and McLean; to cover the costs of the city’s Downpayment Assistance Program; and to fund neighborhood economic development projects like building facade improvements.
Trump’s proposed budget would also eliminate the home weatherization grants program administered by the Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division and the Delta Regional Authority, which fosters economic development in and south of Memphis.
Steve Lockwood, executive director of the Frayser Community Development Corp., said his organization receives about $250,000 in HOME funds every year, and reinvests CDBG funding in the community. His organization currently has an application pending with the city to receive CDBGs to redevelop 10 blighted homes.
“We would very much like to think this is a temporary plan; that there will be a public backlash, that many of the suckers responsible for this budget will be replaced,” Lockwood said.
Reach Ryan Poe at poe@commercialappeal.com or on Twitter at @ryanpoe.