🌟 Exciting News from GrantsHelp! As part of our ongoing efforts to streamline user experience and improve access to grant products and related resources, the GrantsHelp websites will begin to sunset starting on October 1, 2025.
All grant content and tools are being integrated into our core media platforms— Police1, FireRescue1, EMS1, Corrections1, and Gov1—where the majority of our audience already engages.
We appreciate your support as we modernize and consolidate our digital presence to better serve public service agencies and their funding needs.
Federal grant programs frozen again, FDs unable to access funding
Grant awardees are reportedly unable to conduct drawdowns from already approved grant fund accounts
Aslan Alphan/Getty Images
WASHINGTON — A FEMA official halted funding last week for a variety of grant programs, including those that direct funding to fire departments. This move came shortly after a federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop such pauses,
according to NBC News
.
A manufacturer of fire gear confirmed to FireRescue1 that several of their customers have been impacted when trying to access Assistance to Firefighter (AFG) program grant funds in the past week. Outgoing payments are also reportedly paused for the Homeland Security Grant Program (HSGP), Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP), among other programs.
In late January, President Trump’s budget office ordered a freeze on federal grant spending, as part of efforts to ensure that spending complies with Trump’s recent executive orders. A federal judge temporarily blocked the freeze, and Trump’s budget office
rescinded the order
shortly thereafter. However, per
NBC News
, U.S. District Judge John J. McConnell said the Trump administration continues to block federal grant programs.
Stacey Street, FEMA’s director of the agency’s Office of Grant Administration, reportedly sent an email with the subject line “URGENT: Holds on awards,” directing her team to again freeze funding for grant programs, including those focused on firefighting and emergency preparedness. The email directed financial holds on “all open awards, all years (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024).”
Lexipol’s
FireGrantsHelp
team has been working with impacted awardees to determine next steps.
