By Fox23.com News Staff
GREEN COUNTRY, Okla. — The federal funding for mental health and substance abuse programs that were recently cut by the Trump administration have now been restored.
$2 billion in grants were initially cut earlier this week.
The move would have impacted nonprofts including here in Oklahoma that focus on providing care for people experiencing addiction, homelessness, and mental illness.
Some of those nonprofits already made moves to lay off employees and cancel training sessions after learning about the cuts. Our news partners at FOX23 spoke again with Terri Garrett-Riggs, Executive Director with the WRAP Project which serves people in Cherokee and Wagoner County that was originally slated to lose three grants. We checked in with her again after they were reinstated.
“All my staff is back in full-throttle,” said Garrett-Riggs. “I did have some of the staff I did have to lay off go in and show up to be there for clients. Now we’re able to provide all of the services we were before, because it took a lot of man power to be able to do all that we do. Three grants over two counties and we had over 800 people that we were serving through those. So it takes a village fo sure.”
Garrett-Riggs says that with the grants restored, they are now able to go back to business as usual. She says her staff have a different value and a different kind of respect for their jobs and the work that they do and for the clients they serve. She was thankful for the support from the community.
“Prayers and thoughts that we were getting throughout the community; it was so amazing. Because now, it has brought a lot more attention to the stuff that we do…It has just been so amazing to see how the community has just banded together, not only to help WRAP Project, but other organizations across the United States that experienced the same thing. I know a lot of them was getting the same outpour of love and support.”
Earlier, WRAP Project received a letter from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) saying the department cut the awards because it did not align with the administration’s priorities.
“We had already adjusted to the new norm that we’re going to have to figure this out and I was stressing ‘how am I going to fill this gap and this gap?” and finally I was ‘oh my gosh. We’re reinstated. It hit.’ I had to read it through four times to make sure.”
According to the Associated Press, the reason for reversing the cuts is not clear right now and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has not responded to requests for comment.
