CNN
—
The crisis responders who answer the national hotline run by the Department of Veterans Affairs are often talking to former armed servicemembers at life’s lowest moments, many contemplating harming themselves or others.
With President Donald Trump ordering federal workers to return to the office, some are now answering those calls from veterans in crisis in open cubicles around other federal workers. Several spoke to CNN about using hushed tones and even resorting to working from their car in the office’s garage for privacy.
The hotline staff no longer have their own office space because the buildings that housed the call center’s three national hubs – in Georgia, Kansas and New York – were all closed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Since then, the people who answer the Veterans Crisis Line have worked remotely.
“They’re talking to them about their homicidal thoughts, their suicidal thoughts,” said Erika Alexander, president of AFGE 518, a local chapter of the American Federation of Government Employees Union, and crisis responder in Atlanta. “No one should be sitting next to another random federal employee discussing some of the things that they have to discuss about the calls.”
The end of telework is one of several changes that have thrown the Veterans Crisis Line into turmoil during the Trump administration. About a dozen hotline staffers were laid off as part of efforts to downsize the federal government only to be rehired, while others are taking leave because of the untenable working conditions given the sensitivities of their work.
“There’s going to be a lapse in the resources and the services that they get,” Alexander said. “If there are not enough employees to be there for the crisis hotline, then that’s going to definitely cause a lapse in the mission, which is veteran safety – it will be a very significant lapse.”
The 24/7 hotline receives thousands of calls from veterans daily. In February, the crisis responders fielded an average of 2,870 a day. They also respond to hundreds of texts and website chats every day.
“Because of everything that’s going on, because of all the unknown that is really happening – responders are not coming to work,” Karmen Fountain, secretary of AFGE 518, and a crisis responder told CNN, “They are calling out or they are taking leave.”
Fountain described the computer systems queue for the Veterans Crisis Line that shows how many responders are available at any given time to pick up the next phone call that comes in. She said that recently, the queue has been empty for periods of time.
“Our availability has been at zero, quite a few times last week where there’s nobody available to answer the phone,” Fountain said.
The unavailability of responders is rare. The crisis responders who spoke to CNN said past instances have spurred leadership to hire more staff, but they don’t think that will happen in the current political climate.
Two weeks ago, leadership at the Veterans Crisis Hotline filed an exemption to the secretary of Veterans Affairs, Doug Collins, asking for an exemption for hotline workers so they can continue to work remotely until the department can find adequate office buildings that can support the privacy of their work.
Peter Kasperowicz, press secretary for the VA, says it’s the department’s policy to bring as many employees back to the office as space permits, but that they are in the process of approving the exemption for the Veterans Crisis Line from the return to in-office work policy.
In response to questions about a range of concerns with the hotline, Kasperowicz said: “The VA will make accommodations as needed to ensure employees have enough space to work and will always ensure that Veterans’ access to benefits and services remains uninterrupted as employees return to in-person work.”
Along with other federal agencies, Veterans Affairs is bracing for steep cuts by the Trump administration that could lead to the termination of more than 70,000 employees.
In a memo, dated March 4, addressed to “under secretaries, assistant secretaries, and other key officials,” Christopher Syrek, chief of staff for Veterans Affairs, said that the department in partnership with the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, will move “aggressively” to restructure the VA across the entire department and “resize” the workforce.
The plans have been met with some pushback.
“Take it from VA staff on the frontlines: Trump and Elon Musk are actively undermining the Veterans Crisis Line and hurting our heroes whose lives literally depend on it,” Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a veteran and Democratic member of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs who has been pushing for more transparency from the VA secretary on the cuts, said in a statement.
The 1,130 crisis responders at the VA hotline were set to return to work in the office in waves – the first being several dozen supervisors who did so last Monday.
In the scramble of hundreds of thousands of federal employees returning to work, the supervisors were directed to report to various buildings alongside workers from different agencies. Supervisors in Atlanta, for instance, were told to report to an IRS building.
Crisis responders working from home, who are faced with a return to office mandate in May and have been hearing about the working conditions from their superiors who have already returned, have been anxious and stressed by all the uncertainty, union leaders told CNN.
Shift logs reviewed by CNN at one of the three hubs show that 18 crisis responders of about 100 called out for their shift over a three week period through March 3 – an usually high number, the union leaders said.
“We’re just noticing a lot of shortage with availability because of everything that’s going on, because of all the unknown that’s really happening,” said Shonta Thomas, chief steward of AFGE 518 and a crisis responder. “Responders are not coming to work, you know, they’re calling out, or, you know, they’re taking leave. So when those type of things happen, then the shortage of availability of the people that can answer the phone is limited.”
Union leaders say the anxiety around the conditions have led many workers to question whether they want to remain working with the hotline.
“It puts you in a very stressful space and just a very uncomfortable position,” said Thomas – herself a Navy veteran. “Everything is in limbo. You just don’t know what to do. You want to maintain your job. And it’s like, you know, this is a time where I feel like they want people to leave. They want people to, you know, resign – and that’s not a good thing, because ultimately, at the end of the day, veterans will suffer.”
This story has been updated with additional details.
