Todd Hill didn’t think his environmental planning business would feel the hammer of the federal shutdown. After all, most of his work is on state road projects.
But 15 minutes after starting work Tuesday, Hill got an unpleasant surprise. The federal websites his Atlanta staff relies on almost daily for information about protected wetlands and endangered animals had gone dark.
“If the sites are down for more than a couple of weeks, we will likely need to furlough our own employees,” Hill said.
It’s still not clear how widespread, deep or long-lasting the pain of the shutdown will be, but with each day, more Georgians are feeling the pinch. And it goes well beyond the state’s 77,000 federal workers.
Contractors sit idle because federal employees aren’t available to answer questions or coordinate activities. People who need approval on federal forms are left dangling. Kids in federally funded pre-school programs must stay home, leaving their parents to scramble for childcare.
After Friday, 30 Head Start centers will shut their doors in 20 North Georgia counties, including Cobb, Gwinnett, Hall, Cherokee and Douglas.
Melinda Rico has three children in a Gainesville center. She worries that she won’t be able to afford a babysitter, and she has no family nearby to watch the kids.
“I might even lose my job if I can’t find someone,” said Rico, a single mother who works at a cell phone store.
She’s also shelved plans to enroll in Lanier Technical College to study for a career as a medical assistant.
A part of Rita Hopper’s life also went on hold Tuesday. Hopper’s husband is a disabled veteran. He has applied for an increase in veteran’s benefits, and had just completed the necessary paperwork and interviews when the shutdown hit.
Now, she said, there’s no way to know how long a decision may take.
Hopper, who works at Berry College in Rome, finds the whole shutdown confusing – but then, she said, that’s nothing new where the ways of Washington are concerned. “It’s been confusing for years,” she said.
Karla Hernandez went to the federal building in Rome to get a copy of her W-2. Hernandez, who works as a probation officer, is studying human services at Shorter University. She must supply a copy of the W-2 in order to get t her federal student loan funds released to her.
She was chagrined to find the IRS office shuttered. “I had completely forgotten about the shutdown,” she confessed. “It’s frustrating.”
Nina Rubin is heading to Washington soon with her two sons. There, they’ll meet up with her 91-year-old father, Mel Rubin, a World War II veteran who served on the aircraft carrier USS Lexington.
They want to visit to the WW II Memorial, but the national parks and monuments were among the first federal facilities closed by the shutdown.
“We’ve been planning this for months,” Nina Rubin said. Now, though, “we might have to go to Plan B.”
Closer to home, members of the Atlanta Junior Rowing Association learned that the shutdown means they can no longer practice on the Chattahoochee, association booster Barbara Cheng wrote in an email.
“It would be a shame if our rowers fall behind on rowing and cannot compete, especially when parents spend over a thousand dollars a season to have their children row,” she wrote.
Among the poor and vulnerable, uncertainty and anxiety were more common than an abrupt end to services. One exception: As of of Wednesday, Georgia no longer had federal funds for the more than 1,500 refugees who have been receiving medical assistance.
The Georgia Department of Public Health, which manages the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) nutrition assistance program issued a brief statement saying it is “working on steps to keep WIC operating as long as possible.”
The state Department of Community Health, which manages Medicaid, said it could not discuss potential impacts without approval from the state budget office.
Meal programs for seniors will operate through Oct. 15, according to the state Department of Human Services.
Kathryn Lawler, manager of the aging and health resources division at the Atlanta Regional Commission, said that if the shutdown is prolonged, her office may look to churches and community groups to help feed seniors.
Food stamps, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families and heating assistance are running on money left over from the prior federal fiscal year, which ended Monday. How long those funds will last is hard to calculate, officials said Wednesday. But officials said benefits for food stamps and TANF will be issued through October.
“There are so many unknowns,” said DHS spokeswoman Ashley Fielding. “We don’t have a crystal ball.”
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