New Trump Budget Ends Decades-Old Hunger Relief Program

Why It Matters

A federal program that has delivered 2.5 billion meals and 273 million nights of shelter since 1983 is facing its most direct elimination threat yet. The Trump Administration's fiscal year 2027 budget request includes zero funding for the FEMA Emergency Food and Shelter Program (EFSP), a grant program that channels federal dollars through local nonprofits and governments to people experiencing, or at risk of, hunger and homelessness.

The proposal sets up a collision between the administration's devolution agenda and the bipartisan congressional coalition that has kept the program funded for more than four decades, even after its formal authorization of appropriations expired at the end of fiscal year 1994.

The Big Picture

The EFSP was created in 1983 under the Temporary Emergency Food Assistance Act and later, reauthorized under what became the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Despite its authorization lapsing more than 30 years ago, Congress has continued appropriating funds for it every year since, a pattern that reflects the program's durability and its deep roots in local service delivery.

The program's structure is unusual by federal standards. FEMA issues a single grant to a National Board composed of six major nonprofit organizations: the American Red Cross, Catholic Charities U.S.A., the Council of Jewish Federations, the National Council of Churches of Christ, the Salvation Army, and United Way Worldwide. From there, funding flows to local boards, which select Local Recipient Organizations, ranging from municipal agencies to faith-based groups, to actually deliver services.

Eligible costs include emergency shelter, hotel and motel lodging for up to 90 days, rent and mortgage assistance for up to 90 days, food, utility assistance, and small equipment purchases. Allocations to jurisdictions are formula-driven, using population, poverty data from the Census Bureau's American Community Survey, and unemployment figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Annual appropriations for the core program have generally ranged from $117 million to $130 million in recent years. In fiscal year 2023 alone, FEMA awarded $425 million in humanitarian-phase EFSP funding, in addition to the regular $130 million appropriation.

The administration's FY2027 zero-funding request applies to the entire program. Its stated rationale is "the Administration's commitment to reducing overall federal spending and placing greater responsibility for these costs on SLTT," meaning state, local, tribal, and territorial partners.

The report notes that previous administrations, without specifying party, have also proposed either transferring the program to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, on the grounds that it duplicates HUD programs, or eliminating it altogether, arguing that food and shelter provision is fundamentally a state and local responsibility. What is new is the current administration's broader fiscal and immigration posture, which makes the threat more credible.

Political Stakes

For the Administration

The zero-funding request is consistent with a wider effort to reduce the federal government's role in domestic social services and to cut discretionary spending. The EFSP's humanitarian relief phases, which were used to fund services for immigrants at the border, are particularly out of step with the administration's immigration enforcement priorities. Eliminating EFSP funding accomplishes two goals at once: it reduces spending and eliminates a federal funding stream that has, in recent years, supported services for undocumented individuals.

For Congressional Republicans

The program's core mission, delivering emergency food and shelter through local churches, nonprofits, and community organizations, has traditionally drawn support across party lines precisely because it operates through the kinds of institutions that conservatives tend to favor. Cutting it entirely means asking those same organizations, and the state and local governments behind them, to absorb costs that have been federally subsidized for more than 40 years.

For Democrats

A program that has funded 5 million rent and mortgage payments and 6.8 million utility payments, administered through faith-based and community organizations, offers a straightforward argument against the administration's budget priorities.

The jurisdictional landscape matters here. The House Financial Services Committee and the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee hold jurisdiction over the EFSP, according to the report, though it notes that the House and Senate Parliamentarians are the definitive sources on committee jurisdiction. Those committees will be the first battlegrounds if Congress moves to restore funding in the FY2027 appropriations process.

For the Public

The stakes are immediate, particularly for the local organizations that rely on EFSP funding to keep shelters open and meals programs running. The program has no permanent funding stream, since it operates phase by phase, tied to each year's appropriations. A funding gap does not trigger a wind-down; it simply stops the flow of grants to the 14,000 agencies that have received EFSP dollars since the program's founding.

The Bottom Line

The core question for lawmakers is whether the program's community-based, nonprofit-administered structure is enough to hold together a bipartisan coalition willing to override the administration's budget request. Given that prior administrations from both parties have floated similar proposals without following through, and that Congress has consistently rejected them, the EFSP has survived before. But it has not faced this combination of a zero-funding request and a broader federal retrenchment from domestic social programs at the same time.