Before Sergio Ardila joined the board of the Oakland LGBTQ Community Center, he was one of its clients. Ardila, who describes himself as a recovering addict, attended his first Narcotics Anonymous meeting at the center in 2022, through its Rainbow Recovery program, and received rental assistance from the organization during a period of unemployment.

“My story with the center is very personal,” Ardila said. “I got involved to give back what the center has given.”

Now, because of $600,000 in federal funding cuts at the direction of the Trump administration, the center’s services have either been scaled back, or in the case of the rental assistance, cut entirely. The center was notified in January that it would not receive funding because the organization was “not in alignment with the admi

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