Guest Editorial … Federal budget cuts will mean reducing out services

By Khurshida Hossain
Executive Director at Detroit Friendship House
Detroit Friendship House has served our neighborhood since 1929, updating our programs to meet evolving community needs while navigating challenges like recessions and pandemics. This summer, we are being forced, unnecessarily, to adjust our programs due to federal policy.
In addition to our food distributions, we facilitate several programs to help guests make healthier choices and improve their personal well-being.
This includes nutrition education initiatives — our Cooking Matters series, the National Pantry Program, and Serving Wellness at Pantries (SWAP) — which are hosted by our amazing community partners.
For a guest in our pantry, these workshops and informational sessions provide opportunities to learn what nutrition indicators to look for when grocery shopping and ways to prepare nutritious meals while on a tight budget.
We added these educational programs to support positive health outcomes among our guests as 59% report chronic health conditions like diabetes and hypertension, conditions that rely on healthy diets to manage.
On July 4, President Trump signed his landmark bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), into law. As previously shared, the bill makes drastic changes to the social safety net by slashing funding for healthcare, food stamps, and more.
The bill also requires that the US Dept of Agriculture completely cut all funding for SNAP-Ed, the federal program that funds nutrition education for low-income individuals, including the programs listed above.
These changes in funding are short-sighted and inconsiderate of what our pantry guests need; there is no care for everyday people in this legislation, an apparent trend in the Trump Administration.
The USDA already froze dairy funding earlier this year, and in March eliminated two food assistance programs that helped schools and community groups purchase products directly from farmers (the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement helped food banks buy directly from farmers to supply food to their communities).
Food security is a right.
We are disheartened that we are forced to cease elements of our programming until further notice. We’re analyzing if we can continue some programs with our current capacity and expand partnerships to meet the need; we hope to continue sharing nutrition information via SWAP but will not have the means to facilitate in-person programming like Cooking Matters on our own.
We do this work because we believe that connection and community make us strong, and we know that we can rely on our community as we navigate this challenge.
(To learn more about DFH, visit www.detroitfriendshiphouse.org)
Posted Aug. 8, 2025