DOGE's sweeping AmeriCorps cuts leave Philly volunteer programs unsure if they will get promised funding
Alani Rose was overseeing a tax-preparation clinic for low-income households in San Antonio, Texas, when she was called into a meeting, let go, and told to make her way thousands of miles back home as soon as possible.
That's how Rose, who graduated from the now-defunct University of the Arts in 2023, ended up back on the East Coast, couch surfing between Philadelphia apartments and her father's house in North Jersey.
"I have a trend following me of things shutting down," said Rose, 23. "I have places where I can be, but not a place where I should be. … I don't have a home in Philly."
Rose was a member of the AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC), a yearlong federal community service program that Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency cut on April 15 while probing the entire agency for alleged wastefulness. Around 750 NCCC members working on disaster relief and anti-poverty projects received emails recalling them from their posts "effective immediately." The day after, 85% of federal AmeriCorps employees were placed on administrative leave. And on Friday, DOGE ordered AmeriCorps to terminate $400 million in grants to more than 1,000 organizations that host local community service projects.
AmeriCorps' gutting has drawn bipartisan criticism as nonprofits in Philadelphia and beyond scramble to replace the vital services participants provide: repairing homes destroyed in natural disasters, staffing food banks, and assisting teachers in underserved schools, among others.
"When the next hurricane hits, who are they going to deploy to clean up those houses, to distribute food with the Red Cross?" Rose asked.
The Clinton administration started AmeriCorps in 1993 as a domestic version of the Peace Corps. People ages 18 to 26 spend 10 months working on service projects in exchange for a modest living stipend and a higher education grant.
The agency's $1 billion operating cost makes up less than 0.02% of the 2025 federal budget, though AmeriCorps has prevented auditors from fully reviewing its finances for the last eight years by failing to produce usable financial statements. A 2020 study from Voices of National Service also found that for every tax dollar invested in AmeriCorps, its programs return $17.30 in value.
The AmeriCorps participants, administrators, and politicians The Inquirer interviewed agreed that AmeriCorps could be run more efficiently. Gutting the agency from the inside, however, is not the way to fix those problems, they said.
"They're coming in with the assumption that this is all waste, fraud, and abuse," said U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Democrat who represents Chester County, who taught chemistry at Simon Gratz High School in 2011 through AmeriCorps. "But we have so much to lose when we talk about taking these people, who have servant hearts, out of communities."
Philadelphia is already feeling ripple effects from the cuts. It received more than $17.9 million in federal funding to support 1,368 AmeriCorps volunteers for the 2023-24 fiscal year, the most of any county or city in Pennsylvania. Most recently, the Pennsylvania Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster had to pause repairs on 250 homes in the Philadelphia area that sustained damage after its 11 NCCC participants were sent away.
Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., an AmeriCorps alum, called the cuts "stupid and punitive," while Houlahan has cosponsored a bill that would prohibit federal dollars from being used to gut AmeriCorps.
Philly's AmeriCorps network worries that the lack of staff will make it difficult to receive already-promised funds and onboard new volunteers, jeopardizing their ability to run programs smoothly.
"I was literally telling some of my staff yesterday, like, 'You should probably start looking for a new job,' because I don't know that we have a program after August," said Hillary Kane, the director of the Philadelphia Higher Education Network for Neighborhood Development (PHENND), which hosts 54 AmeriCorps participants.
Administrative gaps could tie up millions in funding
Kane said that about 70% of PHENND's budget comes from federal AmeriCorps funds. The funding supports a mentorship program for first-generation low-income college students and fellows who work on college readiness and capacity-building in Philadelphia schools, among other things.
Kane said she had already secured or applied for funding to support all of PHENND's programs for the next year, turning the problems from financial to logistic.
"In my world, which is fully funded, if there's no one (at AmeriCorps headquarters) to click the buttons that put people into programs, it doesn't matter," Kane said. "We've already made offers to people for next year. What are we supposed to tell them?"
Sakinah Bibi, a senior at West Chester University, serves as a community and family engagement coordinator at KIPP Philadelphia charter schools through AmeriCorps. She earns $957 every two weeks to plan social-emotional learning lessons for special education classes, run family focus groups, and administer a college prep program. The work, Bibi said, has changed her life.
"I feel like the kids are a part of me. … I found out that social work is my calling," said Bibi, 25, who receives college credit for working at KIPP.
Other local organizations are in a position similar to PHENND's, promised funding but uncertain that administrative hang-ups will let them actually receive it. Four Philadelphia programs receive over $1 million in AmeriCorps funding - including City Year, which brought in $4.6 million to support 125 student success coaches at 13 Philadelphia-area public schools.
"At present, there have been no changes to our AmeriCorps funding," Darryl Bundrige, executive director of CityYear Philadelphia, said in a statement. The group has been "working in close partnership" with the Voices for National Service coalition, which lobbied Democratic members of Congress to send President Donald Trump a letter asking for the cuts to be reversed.
The City of Philadelphia also received over $632,000 in federal funding to support its VISTA program, which hosts 25 AmeriCorps volunteers in city departments to work on anti-poverty initiatives.
The program will continue to operate unless it is notified of changes to its grant, said Robin Walker, deputy executive director of place-based initiatives at the Philadelphia Office of Community Empowerment and Opportunity. But without the funding the city will "face diminished capacity to address the root causes and impacts of poverty."
Khaleelah Ahmad, 41, has been a community partnerships coordinator at Jules E. Mastbaum High School in Kensington for the last three years through AmeriCorps. Most of her time is spent working with nonprofits on programs that help students deal with the trauma of growing up in the center of Philly's opioid epidemic. Ahmad worries even missing a week with them due to funding lapses could be disruptive.
"When I'm not there, my students ask, 'Where you at, Ms. Ahmad?'" she said. "People rely on us."
Big gaps to fill
Others worry that dissolving NCCC could kneecap vulnerable communities and young people at the same time, leaving both to figure out how to cope with a job unfinished.
Daniel Hassler graduated from Drexel last year and then went straight into AmeriCorps NCCC. His first assignment was in North Carolina with the Red Cross in the wake of Hurricane Helene. After that, Hassler lived on $380 a month from AmeriCorps as he worked on other projects, like setting up a food bank and working on assistive home repairs for seniors in Sacramento, Calif.
"It was daunting at first," said Hassler, 22, who has since returned home to live with his parents in Connecticut. "But also beautiful getting to see what we're capable of when we work together."
Hassler and Gwen Pfister, a 2024 Temple University graduate from Havertown, found out NCCC was getting shut down from a Reddit post while traveling back from an NCCC assignment in Washington state.
"There's a misconception that people are going to be filling the gaps that we are leaving," said Pfister, 23. "Other people may step up to volunteer, but not in the way we do, five days a week for six weeks straight."
Hassler, Pfister, and all other NCCC participants will be still be able to receive the $7,395 higher education grant AmeriCorps promised them. Right now, it feels like a consolation prize.
"Part of the reason I joined AmeriCorps was to figure out what I wanted to do after college, and I still don't really know that," Hassler said.
_____
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