Berkshire County — For Carolyn Valli, CEO of Central Berkshire Habitat for Humanity (Habitat), a Sunday night email from the Massachusetts Service Alliance (MSA) proved alarming as she feared its contents—the termination of almost $200,000 in funds—would devastate the program she administers—that is, building much-needed affordable homes in the area while providing skills to local workers to build that housing.
The MSA is the conduit for distributing AmeriCorps Agency grants to Commonwealth organizations that serve local communities with programs ranging from tutoring children and offering legal assistance to building affordable homes and maintaining natural resources. In exchange, project workers receive a stipend that pays for their housing and living expenses.
But those essential funds won’t be continuing, the MSA email advised. Habitat and Greenagers, a 100-acre educational, regenerative farm in South Egremont, are the only two AmeriCorps members within Berkshire County.
“So, they literally wiped AmeriCorps out for all Berkshire County,” Valli said, adding that the email reasoned that the award no longer meets agency priorities.
On its website section covering 2025 grants, Americorps states it is “currently conducting a full review to determine and implement steps needed to fully comply with the January 20 Executive Order and the January 21 [Office of Personnel Management] Guidance.”
Most of the nearly $190,000 annual payment of the three-year Habitat grant goes toward stipends, the living expenses of eight employees who are working and training in residential construction until September 5 within the organization’s workforce development program, a project with its goal of placing members in a career job. The pilot for the program began about five years ago, and its recruits emanate from marginalized communities, generally those with lower incomes residing in the Berkshires.
“Why not teach the people who are living in the neighborhoods that have been shut out from opportunities in the past before they incur a lot of college debt, or maybe they’re not geared toward going to college, how about we teach them a skill to fill this huge gap that we have in the trades?” Valli said. “That was our theory of change—we’re going to make this a workforce development program, and the side benefit is we’re also building affordable homes.”
A full-time Habitat member who serves 1,700 hours receives a $20,000 living allowance and, upon completion of their service, an education award that can be used for additional schooling such as college or trade school. Members also receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the former food stamp project, benefits.
The reimbursement grant, currently in its second year, requires an annual renewal, and Habitat has already submitted for the 2026 renewal grant.
Last month three of its eight program members became licensed in the hoisting trades, enabling them to run an excavator for construction. After hearing the news of the funding cut on Sunday, a contractor hired one of the newly licensed workers for his business the following day. “It’s beautiful and it shows that this works,” Valli said of the action taken. “He’s making a family living wage in a profession [in which] you can continue to make a family living wage.”
Greenagers Executive Director Will Conklin said he got a “heads-up” from MSA late on Friday afternoon that the group’s grant, along with that of Habitat, was on the list to be terminated. Weekend communications advocated those groups with grants terminated to note what effect that action would have on their organization, with further guidance to be provided by the state agency the following week.
“Essentially, at most, AmeriCorps members have two weeks to figure out their next steps,” Conklin said. “Their income is going away; education awards they signed up for will be prorated at best. It’s just turned into a huge amount of turmoil into their lives and our programs.”
Greenagers employs youth, connecting those workers with outside jobs and volunteer opportunities, hosting a six-member AmeriCorps program. As with Habitat, those members earn a living stipend that is paid by Greenagers through the MSA and an AmeriCorps grant. The grant allows AmeriCorps members to work in Greenagers’ conservation department, developing local trails, removing invasive species, and tending to projects throughout Berkshire County and a bit eastward. They also lead in-school and after-school educational programs focused on environmental science and outdoor exploration, with an insight enabling interested youngsters to find relevant careers.
Although Greenagers exists in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont, the group’s AmeriCorps members only work in Massachusetts.
Awarded a three-year AmeriCorps contract, Conklin said the curtailment comes in its first year, with $290,000 granted each year. Prior to receiving the grant, he said the group built a diverse funding platform when the program was smaller but “spent an entire year planning to take on this obligation and this relationship with AmeriCorps,” developing staffing and program models centered on working with the organization and federal government to add this resource to the community.
“Now we have to go back to the drawing board,” Conklin said. “Unfortunately, when you add a ton of capacity, you add the ability to do great work in our community. Then, when you have to pull that back, that really means young kids are not going to have mentors coming into their schools to do this work.”
The measure will also affect the upkeep of local spaces, he said, “because we just won’t have the capacity to take on as much of that work.”
“All of our towns, cities, local land trusts that take care of our outdoor spaces and that make the Berkshires what they are, and so attractive and meaningful to our local residents as well as tourists—there’s a dearth of labor to take care of these spaces, and Greenagers help fill in that gap, and we will be less able to do so,” Conklin said.
Conklin has kept his staff abreast of developments after AmeriCorps pulled out of federal programs, later eliminating 85 percent of its Washington, D.C., staff. “So, it’s hard to see how any entity could administer a nationwide program on 15 percent staffing,” Conklin said, adding that the group began making contingency plans and budgets weeks ago.
On Monday afternoon, Valli informed her staff of what had transpired, sharing the email and telling the team that “it wasn’t anything about what they did.”
She met with the group’s finance committee who approved advancing emergency funds to pay for the stipends of Habitat’s eight workers, monies that will carry the members through the next two weeks “until they figure out Plan B.” Funding for the program manager, a staff position, may also be at risk.
“It’s not like we don’t have a lot of work here,” Valli said. “I can’t lose another human being.”
Habitat is in the midst of constructing 27 affordable homes after completing and selling four homes last year, she said. Two more homes will be sold this month. The local Habitat organization isn’t in danger of folding, Valli said, citing its other funding sources such as United Way, Guardian Life insurance company foundation, and private donors. Those monies are used to match the AmeriCorps grant as is required, with Habitat having matched the grant by more than 50 percent. Additionally, the group has been working to build up its own construction staff.
However, the funding curtailment may delay the completion of homes, Valli said. “We’re looking at every Plan B scenario we have,” she said.
An April 29 social media plea Valli posted resulted in more volunteers joining the Habitat ranks to help. Prospective employers looking for apprentices can contact her directly at CEO@berkshirehabitat.org.
Both Valli and Conklin are asking folks to reach out to their state and federal representatives to end the curtailment of AmeriCorps grants as well as provide financial assistance to get them through the transition and contingency planning.
Conklin is hoping to honor Greenagers’ commitments to its AmeriCorps members and keep them on the job through the summer season. “I think we can do that, but we need some help from the community,” he said.
According to an April 29 news release, Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell joined 23 attorneys general and two governors in filing a lawsuit alleging the Trump administration is attempting to illegally dismantle the AmeriCorps program. The statement provides the MSA received more than $23 million in AmeriCorps funding to support Commonwealth programs. “In their complaint, AG Campbell and the coalition argue that by abruptly canceling critical grants and gutting AmeriCorps’ workforce, the Trump Administration is effectively shuttering the national volunteer agency and ending states’ abilities to support AmeriCorps programs within their borders,” the release states.
Valli voiced concern that those in Washington, D.C., who are making such decisions are unaware of “what is going on and how it is affecting local people right here.”
Referencing AmeriCorps, Conklin said he “can’t think of a more non-partisan project.” He called federal administration attempts to undercut the organization’s tenets and undermine the “important community work” performed by its members “mind-boggling.”
“To me, it’s not about politics, it’s about people and about justice, and this seems like a very unjust decree,” Valli said. “We didn’t do anything wrong. We have a crisis in housing, and they’re saying we can’t build houses for people.”
Attempts to contact MSA were not returned by press time.
