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"Many people have been affected by the federal government shutdown and the longer it goes on, the more people it will affect personally.Video: Twin Cities feel effects of government shutdownVeterans, elderly people and nonprofits are already feeling the effects.Sixteen days of furloughed workers, delayed pay and many questions had veterans like Ray Polley asking why they served in the first place.\u201CMakes me wonder if it was all worth it,\u201D Polley said.The shutdown also has retired workers asking if they\u2019ll keep getting Social Security.\u201CHow many must wonder whether they will receive their meager monthly Social Security checks and worry about how they will get by without it?\u201D asked Diane Grandmason of the Alliance of Retired Workers.Federally funded programs in Lewiston and Auburn are wondering if they will be able to continue at all.\u201CNo one truly believes that cutting Head Start and community health programs will jump-start the economy,\u201D said Gen Lysen of the Maine People\u2019s Alliance.Programs such as Head Start, which helps teach and care for young children, and Community Concepts, which provides fuel assistance, are in danger of losing funding.If the shutdown continues or if there\u2019s another budget battle early next year, representatives of both programs said they might not be able to help as many people.\u201CWe\u2019ve been sequestered, we\u2019ve had our share of cuts,\u201D said Sharon Philbrook Bergeron of Androscoggin Head Start. \u201CWe\u2019re doing the best we can with what we have.\u201DThe B Street Community Center has been helping thousands of people get health care access since the early 1990s. Now they say they don\u2019t know what to tell people when their future is in the government\u2019s hands.\u201CThese are not just downtown residents,\u201D said Jim Lysen of the B Street Community Center. \u201CA lot of them are senior citizens from Lewiston. This is not an issue of downtown. This is an issue of Lewiston as a whole.\u201DIf the government pushes back the deadline or has another shutdown in early 2014, which has been talked about, that could cause programs to lose most of their funding because they won\u2019t have their federal grants.Head Start helps about 275 families a year and wouldn\u2019t be able to serve nearly as many"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.wmtw.com/article/lewiston-auburn-programs-feeling-effects-of-shutdown/1998452>