Despite reprieve, threat of federal funding cuts prompts action at Equitas Health | Equitas Health

News 1/31/25

Despite reprieve, threat of federal funding cuts prompts action at Equitas Health

Late on Monday night, the White House ordered a freeze on all federal grants and loans, sending nonprofits scrambling to understand the immediate and long-term implications of a sudden, unprecedented halt to our funding. After legal challenges mounted in response to the move, the White House rescinded the memo on Wednesday.

While that news offered a reprieve for Equitas Health, we know that this relief will be short-lived. The federal government, which previously helped organizations like us meet our communities’ healthcare needs, now looks to defund programs that affirm people’s gender identity, that value diversity, equity, and inclusion, and that carry the mantle of LGBTQ+ and HIV+ advocacy.

Equitas Health relies on more than three dozen awards totaling $27 million in federal support. We use these funds across 75 of Ohio’s 88 counties to provide essential healthcare and human services to thousands of people. In rural and urban settings across the state, our team connects patients with vital medical care, dental care, and food assistance. We help our patients with emergency rental and utility assistance to prevent evictions and homelessness. We help survivors of domestic violence escape their tormentors. We help young adults gain access to prevention education, HIV testing, and prevention supplies such as condoms and PrEP. Our subsidized healthcare services help low-income Ohioans living with HIV live full lives and prevent the spread of HIV to their partners. These services are too important to lose.

We expect a heated debate over federal funding to continue over the next couple of months, as Congress moves toward a March budget deadline. Our External Affairs team is already hard at work contacting elected officials to urge them to protect this funding and to resist efforts to add unjust requirements to future grant funding. But we need your help.

We ask everyone who supports our patients and communities to immediately raise their voices. Please click here to find contact information for the U.S. House Representative in your area. Call or write to tell them that our communities need the services that organizations like Equitas Health offer. We cannot afford to turn our backs on the patients and clients who need us most.

Equitas Health has come a long way this past year in positioning the organization for sustainability and long-term success. But we are now in uncharted waters. Equitas Health can sustain a temporary pause in funding, but there is no sugarcoating the reality that a prolonged gap will render our services impossible to sustain.

Equitas Health is fortunate to have the strong support of staff, volunteers, donors, and advocates across the state. We ask you to please click here for updates via FacebookInstagram, and LinkedIn. If you are able to give, your donation will support someone in our community who seeks the quality, affirming healthcare services that all people deserve.

Thank you for standing with us.