“Our biggest concern is the marginalization of safety net support programs for families,” she said, adding that food and housing for the needy might be compromised “because less money will be trickling down from the federal government after the massive tax cut.”

At Bridges to Housing Stability, another nonprofit organization in Columbia, the case workers help low-income families find affordable housing while assisting others who are at risk of eviction. The group also helps people find jobs, budget their money and improve their credit, so they can live with some degree of stability.

Kelly McLaughlin, executive director at Bridges, said that although the child tax credit might help some of their clients in the short term, she was more worried about how the bill could impact Bridges’ funding, the majority of which comes from state and county grants, which flow from the federal government.

“If that happened,’’ she said, “ it would severely impact our ability to stabilize families in homes, which has a ripple effect on the entire community at large.”

Concern Over Charitable Giving

Those are not the kinds of personal anxieties the tax bill presents to Bill and Maureen Harris, who met in the sixth grade in Silver Spring, Md., and married after receiving a pair of Ivy League degrees. They moved to Columbia because it was known to embrace biracial families.

The Harris’s will no longer be permitted to deduct all of their state and local taxes, including their property taxes, but they don’t expect to be especially harmed by the new rules. They are more worried about the bill’s potential broader effects, particularly if the tax cuts leave less federal money for state programs and public schools.