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Last Tuesday morning, Samantha Winter, coordinator and grant director of Socorro County Options, Prevention, and Education (SCOPE), was sitting at her desk with her burrito from Sofia’s when she received an unexpected call.
“Susan, my secretary, called me. She’s like, have you seen the orders? I was like, what? And at which point, she spelled it out,” Winter said.
Federal funding was put on pause by the presidential office, and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) was specifically listed as wasteful government spending.
“Equity, diversity and inclusion is kind of our thing. That’s what we do,” Winter said.
SCOPE, established as a non-profit in 2019 offers outreach programs on harm reduction, youth services and mental health. Their mission is to connect the community to resources. They have programs such as the community Wednesday movies, Narcan trainings and host events such the petting zoo they had last week.
Winter said that because three-quarters of SCOPE’s funding relies on federal funds, the news left them in a confused panic.
“They gave the order that federal funding was going to be frozen at 5 p.m. but at 9 a.m. we weren’t able to access and get money out of those portals. So effectively, federal funding ended Monday,” Winter said, “So we don’t know whether it’s because everybody panicked and tried to do a cash out before 5 p.m. and overwhelmed the system, which is honestly what we were about to do, but all these portals shut down.”
She said they had an emergency meeting, and because the order didn’t offer clarity, it was hard for them to make a solid plan, but they decided to prioritize their staff above all else.
“There was the question: are we losing current, active funding today? Are we losing September funding? or are we losing a year from now funding?” Winter said.
She said they decided they would work on diversifying grants, but the timing of being outside of the grant application windows would be a challenge.
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“And then also, all these federally funded programs are going to be now fighting for the same small pot,” Winter said.
Although they have experienced funding crises before, she said they’ve always had a forewarning.
“Sometimes we’ll get little stressors and hurdles. But usually, we have time… It’s never been a 24-hour notice.” Winter said.
The concerns remain even after a judge halted and the freeze was rescinded. They will play it day by day as the news unravels.
“With the rescinding of orders, we’re assuming that we are in the clear until September; we are going to start very much kind of evaluating and considering diversifying some of our funding streams and stuff because, at this point, we’re going to have to,” Winter said.
Winter said that SCOPE is just one of many organizations in Socorro impacted by the freeze.
“Everybody’s in the same boat,” Winter said, “Whether you’re in two feet of poop versus five feet of poop, you’re still standing in poop.”
