the stop-work orders were issued<\/a>.<\/p>\nSamantha Cooper, a contractor whose employment was terminated, had been working in maternal and child health and nutrition at the aid agency, and was set to begin a new job this past Monday in the Office of H.I.V.\/AIDS. Within days, she went from being excited about an upcoming career milestone to straining to make ends meet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m having to file for unemployment, which doesn\u2019t even cover rent; food stamps, which \u2014 that\u2019s fine, it at least gets me groceries,\u201d she said in a telephone interview. Her medical coverage ran out on Friday last week.<\/p>\n
Ms. Cooper, who is based in Tulsa, Okla., said she felt luckier than most.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have co-workers that are going through I.V.F., and they\u2019ve lost all their benefits; people going through cancer treatments and with parents on hospice \u2014 and they were the breadwinners,\u201d she said. \u201cI feel privileged to say this is only what I\u2019m struggling with. I know there are so many others having to deal with that, and it is literally going to break them.\u201d<\/p>\n
That was the fear for one Foreign Service officer in Asia who discovered this week that an immediate family member needed to be evacuated for a life-threatening health condition, only to be told by superiors that amid the dissolution of U.S.A.I.D., there was no funding available for emergency medical travel. Their only option, the officer was told, would be to immediately return to the United States, where they have nowhere to live, and leave their belongings and pets behind.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Another Foreign Service officer working at a mission in Africa wrestled with how to break the news to her two young children.<\/p>\n
She also worried that she and her spouse, who also works in development, would have to live off the savings they had hoped to put toward a house if they both soon found themselves out of work.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just feels like the entire sector is sinking, and so how am I going to find a job?\u201d she said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, like others, for fear of retaliation. \u201cAll I know is development, all I know is public health \u2014 I\u2019ve dedicated my life to this. What other skills do I have?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The decimation of U.S.A.I.D. has set off a domino effect, as contractors, nongovernmental organizations and consulting firms that rely on funding from the agency for their projects also are forced to make cuts. At least 10,000 American jobs in the sector have already disappeared, according to InterAction, which represents a number of organizations specializing in foreign aid.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cIt\u2019s the evisceration of the sector,\u201d Tom Hart, the president and chief executive officer of InterAction, said.<\/p>\n
Employees of nongovernmental organizations and companies that rely on U.S.A.I.D. funding said they had effectively been blocked from accessing any funding through the agency\u2019s accounting system, and in some cases, had months of expenses with no guarantee that the federal government would reimburse them.<\/p>\n
Resonance, a development consulting firm that employed about 150 people around the world, is an example of a small company taking a big hit. The firm did about 75 percent of its business with U.S.A.I.D. before the contraction. It has bills going back to November that the agency has yet to cover, Steve Schmida, its co-founder, said in an interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re being forced to carry a huge amount of cost with no clarity if and when we will get paid or reimbursed,\u201d Mr. Schmida said, adding that he had to lay off almost 90 percent of his U.S.-based staff. He is going without pay for three months to help free up funds to keep his business afloat, he said.<\/p>\n
But as news of the drastic staff reductions took hold, he was losing hope that the government would ever cover the funding his firm had been promised.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just been a catastrophe,\u201d he said of the U.S.A.I.D. cuts, adding: \u201cI think it\u2019s dawning on everyone that this is over.\u201d<\/p>\n
Edward Wong contributed reporting from Bangkok and Chris Cameron from Washington.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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