- [Stan] Straight ahead on "Impact."

Outdoor recreators were already worried about Forest Service staffing issues before the Trump administration's mass layoffs.

- A significant amount of winter recreation is also dependent on seasonal employees with the Forest Service.

- [Stan] Plus, the last Surgeon General called loneliness an epidemic.

A group in Bozeman is working on solutions.

- That's why I reached out to Befriender 'cause I wanted a dad or grandpa in my life and my kids' life, so.

- And old people are interesting, I think.

(Lyndsay laughs) - [Stan] That's all straight ahead on "Impact."

- [Announcer] Production of "Impact" is made possible with support from the Greater Montana Foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.

And viewers like you who are Friends of Montana PBS.

Thank you.

- Welcome to "Impact" from Montana PBS Reports.

I'm Stan Parker.

US Forest Service employees are reeling after a previous hiring freeze collided with recent mass layoffs, directed by Elon Musk and the Trump administration.

As Aj Williams reports, Montanans could soon feel the consequences of a smaller Forest Service.

(crowd cheers) - [Aj] It's another lively day at the state Capitol as these Montanans hope their rally calls for public lands are heard in the face of the recent federal cuts.

(crowd cheers) But the fight for funding public lands goes further back than the administration change.

The US Forest Service was already dealing with a downsized workforce and the effects have been seen on the ground.

Skier Sam Galindo prepares for another afternoon, skinning up Marshall Mountain just beyond Missoula.

- I wonder if I can get 'em to stand up.

There we go.

Ready to go skiing.

(laughs) So I'm a pretty new backcountry user, so this is only my second season.

When you go into the backcountry, you want to know what you're heading into and be able to prepare and plan for it.

And the Avalanche Forecast is by far the most helpful portion of that.

- [Aj] The US averages 27 avalanche related deaths every year.

Galindo relies on avalanche forecasts to travel across forest land safely.

But earlier this season, they weren't available.

- I didn't know what the snow was gonna do, and I was kind of too scared to venture into avalanche terrain.

- [Aj] Galindo and other backcountry users were lacking data because of the Forest Service hiring freeze that went into effect last fall.

That hiring freeze began after Congress was projected to cut a half billion dollars from the Forest Services operating budget.

Forest Service Chief Randy Moore stated the freeze was aimed at keeping the agency in line with possible budgetary constraints.

They also promoted 13 to 1,400 workers to permanent positions, using Temporary Inflation Reduction Act funding, which several members of Congress criticized and which put the agency in an economic bind.

Now with a new administration in office, the Forest Service faced additional layoffs of their workforce.

3,400 Forest Service permanent employees, many of which were recently promoted, were let go as a part of the federal spending cuts at the directive of the Department of Government Efficiency, better known as DOGE.

At least 360 of those who lost their jobs were Montanans.

And according to experts, these changes follow years of Congress already under underfunding the service.

- Since the 1980s, really, the US Congress has pretty consistently underfunded the Forest Service and other public lands agencies.

And so suddenly your staff salaries have gone up, but you don't have the budget to cover that.

So that was another kind of piece to building a budget crisis.

- [Aj] But many in Congress, including some of Montana's delegation, are critical of how the Forest Service uses its funding, citing wasteful spending and subpar forest management.

- Many important forest management projects that would decrease the risk of catastrophic wildfires have been halted.

It's just troubling at a time when we're seeing increasingly buildups of hazardous fuels that the target of the Forest Service actually went down year over year, from 4.2 million to four million.

I mean, you've gotta look at where you gotta spend, where you got to target, but I just, I raise that as a real concern when you think about that's an investment too, to try to reduce the cost to fight catastrophic wildfires.

This is kind of pay me now or pay me later and you pay a lot more later.

- So I'm sure the Great American Outdoors Act has been very, very helpful.

You know, my concern is that it was intended to, really, to make sure that it goes to infrastructure.

And I believe housing was part of that infrastructure on that, what it seems, as I review it, a lot of it's going to studies.

So, if you just look at that, and just, I ask you to look at it and make sure that the focus was on getting things done and not doing an analysis of how to get things done.

- [Aj] Eisen advocates that studies are important for understanding the health and use of our public lands and acknowledges the importance of being on the ground for that work.

- You can't manage recreation if you just hang out in your office all day.

You have to get in a vehicle and go into the field.

You have to put gas in your snowmobile to go see what the snow conditions are.

So starting in October, there's really strict limits around how agency employees can spend money, and that affects the Winter Recreation program as well.

A significant amount of winter recreation is also dependent on seasonal employees.

- [Aj] In the initial Forest Service hiring freeze, 2,400 seasonal employees were cut.

Wildland firefighters were exempt from the freeze, but avalanche centers were not.

- None of this stuff happens in a vacuum and all of it costs money.

And currently the Forest Service has been mandated that they are responsible for avalanche forecasting and public safety in wintertime recreation.

But it is an unfunded mandate.

- [Aj] The West Central Montana Avalanche Center employs multiple snow scientists to test conditions and write a report for the public to use when making decisions about backcountry travel.

They forecast for a large area within multiple national forests that jointly fund their work.

The initial Forest Service hiring freeze put their agreement and their forecasts in limbo.

- If there aren't experts out there to highlight the dangers and highlight the warnings, then the public, at the end of the day, is uninformed.

Finding a way for our communities to be safer, for friends and family to come back from playing at the end of the day, alive and ready to do it again tomorrow, has value and has merit.

- [Aj] The Center was able to sign a one year contract hiring two employees for avalanche forecasting this winter.

However, Hutcheon says that their funding remains uncertain for winters going forward.

The future of staffing and managing Montana's public lands remains uncertain, too.

In a recent visit to the Montana legislative session, three members of the state's delegation shared their support of DOGE's work.

- What we've seen these past few weeks is a radical reform of the federal government, and we're reforming the federal government so it works for, not against the people of Montana.

- Combating inflation, you know, fiscal policy.

That's one of the hardest parts.

And we're gonna be faced with that here in the near future of dealing with our budget, budget reconciliation, getting appropriations bills through, figuring out how we fund the government without causing it to go bankrupt.

And so that's gonna be a lot of, you know, tightening of the belts, a lot of hard work.

Nobody's gonna get everything that they want, but we need to fight this back 'cause the direction that we've been going in this country is not sustainable.

- So where are we gonna find the savings?

'Cause all of us, like you, are fiscally responsible because that's our duty, because it's the debt that a lot of people don't talk about, but it's a time bomb and we all know it.

And I can tell you 36 trillion reasons why it is.

But it's fixable.

It's fixable as all of us work together.

- [Aj] With reductions in funding, the Forest Service has been relying on partner organizations, like the Montana Conservation Corps, as a cost effective way to get work done.

- We have a big impact on our public lands, and that's anywhere from just clearing trails to building new trails, to rerouting problem trails, and everything in between.

All the structures we build, the bridges, the turnpikes.

There's different categories of trail maintenance and we dabble in all of them.

And really, the primary push often is, at this point, is to just get trails open for public use.

- [Aj] This season, they could be leaning on those partnerships even more.

Grillo says that when the hiring freeze was announced last fall, they expected to step in as a partner organization of the Forest Service and take on additional conservation work previously done by seasonal Forest Service employees.

- We are a fee for service organization.

That's our model.

So we field crews of four to six people to actually go do a project for our partners.

And in exchange, they pay us for the work.

And those payments are guaranteed through this participating agreement.

- [Aj] Through their agreement.

MCC trail crews coordinate onsite work with Forest Service recreation technicians, most of whom lost their jobs.

With limited staffing from the Forest Service hiring freeze and federal workforce cuts, their trail projects for the season are on pause.

Losing positions like avalanche forecasters and trail workers may have impacts on public safety and there may be other windfalls that impact Montanans, such as tourism and recreation dollars that contribute to Montana's economy.

Outdoor recreation makes up 4.3% of the state's GDP, according to the Institute for Tourism and Recreation Research, putting Montana as number three in the nation for percentage of GDP.

Montana has 12.5 million visitors on average each year, most of whom come to visit public lands.

Their research also indicates that having access to amenities such as bathrooms, trash disposal, paved trails, and ranger presence, which are handled by seasonal employees and contractors, are important for a positive visitor experience.

- There's a lot of recreation use and that has been growing and growing and growing.

And then with the COVID pandemic, the curve went exponential, right?

We've all seen how many more people there are out recreating.

We want the Forest Service to manage wildfires, to conduct timber sales, to protect habitat.

And there's a lot of recreation that we are asking for opportunities, whether it's, you know, make sure that this road is maintained so I can drive to my favorite campground, and then I want the campground to be open when I get there.

- Reducing the federal workforce will have impacts on employment, on NGOs.

These are livelihoods, these are jobs.

This is what people do to make money.

And if that goes away, that's a real impact.

I hope that people understand that there are real consequences to the loss of work associated with public lands management.

- [Aj] Agencies and organizations hold tight and brace for more federal cuts.

At the moment, the uncertainty around staffing public lands is not just felt by the employees, but Montanans, as winter thaws into the next season with fewer services for the places many love to roam.

For "Impact," I'm Aj Williams.

- The layoffs at the Forest Service were targeted at probationary employees, which includes both recent hires and those recently promoted or reclassified.

A USDA spokesperson told us, quote, "Secretary Rollins is committed to preserving essential safety positions and will ensure that critical services remain uninterrupted."

Across the country, loneliness and isolation are growing problems.

It's such a distressing health concern that the last US Surgeon General called it an epidemic more deadly than obesity.

Montana PBS's Hannah Kearse reports on how this issue is affecting Montana's seniors and what one community in Bozeman is doing about it.

- [Hannah] Keith Poston is 82 years old.

He moved to Four Corners in 1986 and a few years later, after his wife died, Keith briefly thought about moving closer to family.

- After my wife and I had moved up here from Colorado and we spent, probably, four years before she passed away of cancer.

And I'd been working at the airport the whole time and people there started saying, "Well, now that your wife is gone, what are you gonna do?

Gonna go back to Wyoming?"

And I thought, "Oh, that's a thought."

And then I thought, "No, no."

I said, "No, that's not home."

This is it.

- [Hannah] In Keith's home, the walls tell a story.

Family photos and artwork, collected from his travels around the world, create a gallery of memories.

Each piece is a frozen snapshot of Keith's life.

But these days, Keith is starting to see the world in a different way, though his passion for travel remains as strong as ever.

- Where have I been lately?

I have, oh, this spring I went on a cruise to Alaska with the Association for the Blind.

- [Hannah] Keith is among the nearly one in 10 Americans age 50 and older living with Age-Related Macular Degeneration, a condition that is drastically affecting his vision.

It's changing how he connects with his community.

And the Bozeman Senior Center has been a frequent setting in Keith's life these days.

- Association for the Blind has their monthly meetings up there and there are a lot of people in town that are losing their sight.

And you don't know it until you go to these meetings and you see a lot of these people with the white canes and the guide dogs and things, and you just never noticed them before.

- [Hannah] The same can be said about our seniors, but they're the fastest growing population in Montana.

And Keith is among the increasing number of seniors living alone.

About 19% of Montanan's aged 65 and older live alone.

That's nearly 56,000 people, according to state numbers.

This is one of the reasons older adults are more at risk to experience isolation and loneliness.

And the impacts go beyond just feeling alone.

Health experts warn that isolation and loneliness can lead to serious health concerns.

In 2023, the United States Surgeon General issued a nationwide advisory, calling it an epidemic.

- Loneliness and isolation can be significant contributors to mental health challenges, like depression, anxiety, and self-harm.

They also have surprising impacts on our physical health, including being associated with increased risk of heart disease and stroke, as well as dementia among older adults.

The good news is that our connection with one another is a powerful force that can help protect against the damaging physical and mental health impacts of loneliness and isolation.

- [Hannah] Befrienders is a part of the powerful force combating isolation and loneliness around the Gallatin Valley.

Located upstairs at the Bozeman Senior Center, Befrienders currently has 130 matches of volunteers and seniors looking for a new friend.

It's how Keith met his friend, Lyndsay Tingler.

- As an adult, you always still need help, no matter what stage in life you are.

So having another generation guiding you, helping you is really important to me and that's why I reached out to Befriender, 'cause I wanted a dad or grandpa in my life and my kids' life, so.

- And old people are interesting, I think.

(Lyndsay laughs) I listened to my grandparents.

I did, I listened to them and learned.

And most people just ignore them because they're old people, what do they know?

- Yeah.

- [Hannah] Befrienders puts isolation and loneliness at the forefront of its mission.

With more than 30 years of service, the nonprofit understands the challenges of improving social connections among older adults.

- The one big challenge with more of the rural areas is the self-sufficiency and feeling that they don't need a handout.

And we're not a handout, we are just linking a volunteer with a senior to be a friend and help them, whether it's for a ride or just conversation.

And so it's trying to break that stigma that this is not a handout, it's a hand up.

One of the biggest challenges has been to get them out into the community.

That is one thing we've really tried to focus on, just to get out there, and we've partnered with a lot of community organizations.

- [Hannah] These partnerships often include physical places that facilitate social engagements for older adults.

And the Bozeman Senior Center has been an indispensable resource for Keith in his older years.

- They're always nice and helpful and friendly, and they have suggestions, like legal help for anything in particular that you're interested in, like your taxes, wills, things like that.

They'll help you out a lot, just a lot.

- [Hannah] Senior centers are often vibrant sources of community.

People come to Bozeman's for all kinds of reasons.

Some come for the fitness classes or to shop at one of the best thrift stores in town.

On most days, David Wilson comes just for the company.

- Anyway, just cameras all over.

- Oh, right.

- You know, I mean, sitting in a small little apartment, I have to tell you, it's not a lot of fun.

Three windows and a wall, you know?

So eh, and here I am.

I mean, I come here about every day.

- See deer and- - Hang on!

- [Hannah] The best time for an abundance of conversation at this senior center is around lunch.

The sun shines warm through a wall of south facing windows where potted plants thrive and a row of comfy chairs gradually become occupied as noon approaches.

- You know, like the camaraderie here, is just excellent.

You know, people help each other.

That's what we're missing in our society is people helping each other.

- [Hannah] These are government funded meals and are served at about 170 congregate meal sites across the state, most of them located at senior centers.

Montana serves over a million congregate meals each year.

Here, people can come for lunch five days a week, but many other locations can only provide a couple of meals a week, according to the state.

Montana's agency on aging contracts nonprofits, like Rocky Mountain Development Council or Rocky, to manage senior services, including its nutrition programs.

- The congregate stuff is very much a decades old attempt to ease social isolation.

- [Hannah] For seniors struggling with loneliness, a shared meal can be more than just food.

It's a chance for social interaction.

For some, it may be the only connection they have that day or even that week.

The US Surgeon General's advisory outlines what policymakers and communities can do to help improve social connection.

And while the national strategy involves government investments, recent uncertainty around federal funding has raised concerns for nonprofits, like Rocky.

- The majority of our is federal and if .

.

.

we run into a place where that is either gonna diminish or stop, it would cause a collapse of the aging network.

Like all those nonprofits that are our subcontractors for area four, they would have an extremely hard time surviving.

And right now, the big worry is, that the Older Americans Act has passed its authorization by Congress.

It needs to be reauthorized.

And in this day and age, when we're looking at reducing federal government support so, so radically, it puts the Older Americans Act in harm's way.

And right now, the state of Montana has enough federal funding to get us through February, but we don't know what's gonna happen in March.

- [Hannah] Transportation remains another major challenge in tackling isolation and loneliness among Montana seniors.

For Keith, that challenge is becoming a reality.

His eyesight is deteriorating, and soon, he'll no longer be able to drive.

- You can't just get on, walk down main street and find someplace, you know, you have to travel someplace to get it.

It's just, it's a struggle.

You gotta be aware of it all the time.

- [Hannah] Montana's public transportation is limited, especially in rural areas, making it difficult for many seniors to stay connected.

- If you can't go places, it's hard to be socially engaged, and it's such a tough nut to crack.

And, you know, it's just one of the realities of living in Montana these days.

It wasn't my reality when I was younger.

I'd catch a ride from Townsend to Missoula without any troubles and there was really good service.

Today, you can't do that.

And Uber and Lyft have helped quite a bit, but it's still, you know, is expensive.

It requires mastery of the smartphone, which for a lot of people is not easy.

- [Hannah] Many state run programs and community organizations that provide senior services can keep seniors independent and connected.

And this can have a ripple effect of benefits in the community.

- What we are doing is trying to keep them connected to the community and keep them vibrant and off services that the government provides.

So we're helping to keep them independent, vibrant, and healthy.

- [Hannah] While government investments in senior services can help more older Montanans attain life altering access into their communities, an invitation, a ride somewhere, or sharing a meal can also have the same impact for an individual senior in your life.

(Lyndsay laughs) - Yeah, I think, give it a try.

An hour goes a really long way.

- Oh yeah.

- An hour goes a long way.

We talk on the phone a lot too.

It's kind of a nice- - Yeah.

- I feel like we said it beautifully on the phone.

You're becoming part of our family.

- I think that's awfully sweet of you to say that.

- [Hannah] For "Impact," I'm Hannah Kearse.

- If you are or know a senior who is struggling with isolation and loneliness, there are people who want to help.

A great place to start is by searching for your regional area agency on aging.

That's all we have for this episode of "Impact."

To stay up to date with upcoming episodes from the "Impact" team and all the producers at Montana PBS, visit us online at montanapbs.org.

I'm Stan Parker.

Thanks for watching.

(soft upbeat music) (soft upbeat music continues) (soft upbeat music continues) - [Announcer] Production of "Impact" is made possible with support from the Greater Montana Foundation, encouraging communication on issues, trends, and values of importance to Montanans.

And viewers like you who are Friends of Montana PBS.

Thank you.