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It’s one thing to be out of work during the federal shutdown, but it’s another to get evicted when you’re far from home.
That’s the situation NASA Ames interns found themselves in when many federal government operations ground to a halt at midnight Monday after Congress failed to pass a budget in the culmination of a bitter battle over the implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
The first government shutdown in 17 years will not close the Department of Veterans Affairs or U.S. Postal Service, but NASA and the Menlo Park office of the United States Geological Survey (USGS) have been shuttered.
Besides furloughing employees at Mountain View’s NASA Ames Research Center, visitors cannot even gain access to NASA’s website, which states: “Due to the lapse in federal government funding, this website is not available. We sincerely regret this inconvenience.”
NASA Ames intern James Mishra contacted the Voice to say that he and other interns who are housed on campus were evicted from their dorms on Tuesday. Interns were given a week’s notice that they might have to find alternate housing during the shutdown, Mishra said.
“Most of the interns, including myself, were unfamiliar with the San Francisco Bay Area and struggled to make arrangements. Many senior scientists and engineers made generous offers to let interns stay at their homes,” he said.
Members of Mountain View’s Hacker Dojo have stepped into the breach, offering places to stay, and several members are offering the interns paid work at their startups during the shutdown, said Katy Levinson, the Dojo’s director of development. Hacker Dojo got involved when NASA Ames interns started posting fliers asking for somewhere to stay, she said.
Levinson said she’s trying to get confirmation of how many interns were ousted, and believes there are as many as 50. “We’ve verified the locations and safety of 15, and we’re looking for the other 35,” she said.
The dorm, called the NASA Exchange Lodge, is used by other companies in the summer, including Google and SETI, she said. “It can easily hold 600 kids. There are usually a lot fewer in winter, and they spread them out, so even (the interns) don’t know how many of them are in there.”
Levinson said she stayed in the same dorm several years ago, when she was an intern. “If it had happened to me, I’d be 3,000 miles from home, and (have) less than $1,000 in my bank account,” she said. “I wouldn’t want it to happen to me, and we’re going to fix it.
Blood drive canceled
The local blood bank is being left high and dry by the shutdown. A NASA Ames blood drive benefiting the Stanford Blood Center set for Oct. 2 was canceled when more than 1,000 NASA Ames employees were furloughed, said spokesperson Deanna Bolio. The Stanford Blood Center is urgently in need of O-negative blood, and the shutdown of the federal government is affecting the center’s ability to meet that demand, she said. The drive was expected to collect 75 units of whole blood.
“It’s unfortunate that the government shutdown is impacting the local blood supply,” said Bolio. “NASA Ames employees have been tremendously supportive of the blood center over the last 27 years, having donated thousands of units to help patients in the community.”
NASA Ames hosts five blood drives each year, she said. Anyone interested in donating at Stanford’s Mountain View, Palo Alto or Menlo Park locations can get information at bloodcenter.stanford.edu.
USGS
The USGS stated in a contingency plan that the majority of its operations would be shut down in the event of a lapse in appropriations, with the exception of those functions to protect life and property.
USGS spokesman Justin Pressfield said that nearly all of the more than 8,600 full-time USGS employees would be furloughed beginning Tuesday at 12 p.m. Only 43 employees nationwide, most of whom are in the “hazard mission” area dealing with earthquakes, volcanoes and floods, will not be furloughed, including three at the Menlo Park office.
Pressfield said that in the event of a seismic event, seismologists “in the bullpen” can be activated on an as-needed basis. Only the USGS websites for earthquakes and water will remain open, he said. The rest will be shut down because they cannot be updated and maintained on a timely basis.
The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory will remain open for the time being but only because it’s being supported by a reserve of carryover funds from 2013, said SLAC spokesman Andy Freeberg. Freeberg said there’s no word on how long those funds will hold out.
U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo said her offices in Palo Alto and D.C. will remain open.
“My consistent vote throughout this ordeal has been to keep the government functioning,” she said in a statement. “A shutdown costs taxpayers approximately $150 million a day and has many consequences. The people of our country deserve far better than the spectacle of Congress lurching from one manufactured fiscal crisis to another.”
Eshoo also provided a brief primer on the effects of the government shutdown.
Eshoo’s getting paid while these guys suffer. Least she could do would be donate to a charity willing to help these poor guys, or the group running the cancelled blood drive.
Anna Eshoo’s staff is drawing pay but my NASA contractor spouse is using up sick days. WTF?
The thing about this shutdown is you can’t cherry-pick what’s important and what’s not. Clinical trials, weddings at Yosemite, and NASA interns are not important but the Army-Navy football game and congressional offices are?
If you want a government shutdown, tea partiers, then shut the whole damn thing down.
Have a business trip or vacation planned? Sorry, the flight controllers are at home watching tv. Airports are closed and all domestic and international travel to the US has been cancelled.
Waiting for an important letter or package? Sorry, the post office is closed.
Wondering what the weather will be this weekend? Sorry, the national weather service is down, you’ll have to look outside.
Secret Service is at home, so Obama is holed up in the White House, cooking dinner and washing clothes for the family.
But Anna Eshoo is not the one who closed down the government. Remember that!
However, I am all for a law that states if the Govn’t does not pass a budget, the Congress stops getting paid. Let’s start a Change.org about that
Really? I agree with you. But the point made by Angry voter is that politicians made sure that they are not impacted by anything that the govt fails to do. I am sure lot of the retired politicians are still getting their pensions and other benefits while the real working govt servants not the politicians are screwed by this crisis. Eshoo, Boxer, pelosi, Feinstein, Spiers,etc..are all complete crooks and they have become carreer crooks and the stupid liberal voters of this are keep voting no matter how corrpt and unethical these politicians are. the GOP may be mean and narrow minded but they are not as corrupt as the liberal politicans
They can just stay all at my little ol’place
for a small favor….if you know what I mean…<wink><wink>
Did I read Sick days? Thats some stretch of the use of CAL LTD
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