Who will help the helpers? Ky’s congressmen must increase funds for victim services | Opinion
When victims of crime need relief and support from trauma, Kentucky’s victim service providers step in. When victim service providers need relief and support from federal funding cuts, our congressional leaders should step in. However, congressional support is uncertain, putting the safety of our commonwealth in jeopardy and the lives of some of our most vulnerable Kentuckians in grave danger.
Kentucky’s domestic violence programs, sexual assault crisis centers, and child advocacy centers answer the call to support victim-survivors experiencing domestic violence, dating violence, stalking, child sexual abuse, sexual assault, and more – forms of violence that impact Kentuckians of all identities and ages, though they have a disproportionate effect on People of Color, LGBTQ+, the unhoused, and those suffering from poverty in our commonwealth. Our programs provide free, confidential, and trauma-informed services to those who have experienced severe interpersonal violence and complex personal trauma. This essential lifesaving and life-changing work is supported through a combination of state and federal funding streams. One of our most long-standing and significant funding streams is the federal Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funding.
VOCA funding allows our organizations to employ and train advocates with the knowledge and expertise necessary to provide critical victim services, including 24/7 crisis hotlines and 24/7 hospital response; forensic interviews; safety planning; emergency food, shelter, clothing, and transportation; case management; legal advocacy; prevention and public awareness services; outreach services; and referrals. VOCA funding also supports therapeutic counseling and services for substance use disorder. These services are critical to the well-being of victim-survivors, but they are under threat of severe reduction and even elimination.
VOCA funding is generated from federal fines and penalties, which have dipped to historically low levels over the last four years. Nationally, VOCA is now facing a critical reduction of 40% ($700 million) in federal fiscal year 2024. Previous VOCA cuts have already left thousands of Kentucky’s victim-survivors without the services they need. An additional loss of this magnitude will leave thousands more victim-survivors without support in some of the darkest moments of their lives. One domestic violence program reported that they would have to choose between closing the residential shelter to continue providing services on a non-residential basis or stopping almost all rural non-residential services to keep the shelter open. One Child Advocacy Center was forced to reduce specialized therapy services for children healing from abuse. Sexual Assault Crisis Center Programs fear that data-driven prevention programs will all but end due to reduced staff capacity.
Our programs have been sounding the alarm with Kentucky’s six US Representatives and two US Senators for four years while also working diligently with private funders, state lawmakers, and local leaders to replenish and sustain VOCA funding. However, even with these stopgaps, our programs cannot absorb cuts of this magnitude. And while victim services will likely disappear without a funding fix, the need for victim services will not.
On behalf of the victim-survivors our programs serve, we ask that Congress invest adequate funding for VOCA in the final FY24 Appropriations budget. To our Kentucky congressional leaders, we ask that you advocate for your victim service providers as loudly as we advocate for the lives and futures of your constituents and the children of our Commonwealth; that you be agile, resourceful, and responsive in working toward a permanent solution for long-term, sustainable funding; and that you help the helpers so that we may continue to help victims and survivors, uninhibited, unafraid, and without wavering.
Angela Yannelli is the Chief Executive Officer of ZeroV; Melissa Quillen is Executive Director of Kentucky Association of Sexual Assault Programs; Caroline Ruschell is Chief Executive Officer of Children’s Advocacy Centers of Kentucky. For more information, please visit ZeroV.org.