The federal government is currently in its third week of being partially shut down, and some of Long Beach’s most vulnerable community members will be at risk of going without food and shelter if it continues, according to city health officials.
The Long Beach Health and Human Services Department is tracking the federally funded supplemental nutrition program Women, Infants and Children (WIC) and funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development for the city’s homeless services, housing authority and lead abatement, according to HHS Director Kelly Colopy.
“We are in conversations with state and federal program contacts, where possible, to understand and plan for impacts if the shutdown goes beyond the end of the month,” Colopy said.
Colopy said her department is focusing primarily on the food vouchers offered by WIC, whose clients are low-income pregnant and postpartum women and infants and children up to 5 who are at nutritional risk.
As one of only a handful of cities in the county with a Continuum of Care system to service the area’s homeless, Long Beach receives HUD funding for its programs—usually at the beginning of the year. Last February, the city announced it received over $8 million from HUD.
The HHS department currently has sufficient reserves until February to cover the programs and services.
“Our key message is that everything continues to work and people should continue to come in for services,” Colopy said. “Early disbursements were made to cover February so we continue to work in full operation.”
In another area impacted by the shutdown, an official for the U.S. Coast Guard on Tuesday said the agency will continue to perform duties vital to safety and homeland security, but non-essential tasks have been sidelined.
Petty Officer Mark Barney, a spokesman for the Los Angeles-Long Beach sector, said the agency has sidelined some duties such as regular maintenance for the maritime aids to navigation, which help boaters safely navigate the waters.
Barney said the agency has also stopped safety checks for recreational vessels and regular maintenance for its fleet.
The Coast Guard can ensure safety for now, he said, but if the shutdown continues, forgoing smaller duties will become a big problem.
“These small things add up and the longer this shutdown lasts the harder it is for us to be mission ready,” he said.
Other agencies, like the Long Beach VA Hospital, have seen no impact since Congress has already approved spending bills for some departments including the Departments of Defense, Energy, Labor, Health and Human Services, and Veterans Affairs.
So far, the most visible signs of the shutdown — in its 19th day Wednesday — include the closure of some government buildings and national parks and trash overflowing bins on the National Mall in front of the Capitol.
The partial government shutdown is also starting to affect air travel.
Over the weekend, some airports had long lines at checkpoints, apparently caused by a rising number of security officers calling in sick as they face the prospect of missing their first paycheck this week.
The Long Beach Airport has so far seen no impact to its security lines, a spokesperson said Tuesday.
President Donald Trump used a televised national address Tuesday to urge congressional Democrats to end the shutdown by funding his long-promised border wall, which he said was needed to resolve a security and humanitarian “crisis,” blaming illegal immigration for what he said was a scourge of drugs and violence in the U.S. and asking: “How much more American blood must we shed before Congress does its job?”
Democrats in response accused Trump appealing to “fear, not facts” and manufacturing a border crisis for political gain.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.