Domestic violence shelters struggle with funding cuts

With Noelle Harff

UNC Media Center

Domestic violence shelters in North Carolina are being expanded to their limits federal funds disappear.

Federal funding from the Victims of Crime Act fell for the sixth time in a row. North Carolina domestic violence centers face increasing demand, with only a quarter of the funding they had five years ago.

Next year, North Carolina VOCA grants are expected to drop even further to approximately $3.5 million.

As lawmakers question where millions of dollars are going, shelters have no choice but to cut programs and turn away victims.

A family’s escape

A woman who received death threats from her violent partner ran away from her home with her two children.

Every safe house within a few hundred miles was full. The family stayed in a hotel for several nights while the children were transferred to a new school, restraining orders were issued, and the family looked for a new place to live. Moreover, all this had to be done with a translator from Spanish.

Bridget McEnaney, executive director of The Compass Centre, helped organize the family’s escape.

The Compass Center is a domestic violence prevention center located in Chapel Hill. He shared this story but withheld further details to protect the family’s identity.

This is just one of 2,500 cases the Compass Center handles each year.

Last year, every shelter in the state reached full capacity for more than 100 days, prompting more than 6,000 victims to find safety elsewhere.

“We took people to the mountains by taxi. We took them to the beach by taxi. If that’s not an option, then we often look at domestic violence shelters in the states. We even took a few people out of the country,” McEnaney said.

More than an escape

“Some people are stuck between a rock and a hard place,” McEnaney said. Many victims face a difficult choice: to restart their lives or continue to endure the abuse.

Most domestic violence prevention centers offer legal aid, job support, transportation, counseling, and help with medical bills. But sharp cuts in funding have forced many to cut back on essential services.

Benefits for hospital visits have fallen by 70 percent since 2018, while job and counseling services have also halved.

“This is devastating,” said Caroline Farmer, executive director of the North Carolina Governor’s Commission on Crime.

The Compass Center receives 97 percent of its revenue from federal grants, and this year funding is expected to drop by almost 95 percent.

where did the money go

Financing these safe houses and treatment centres, federal fund founded by Victims of Crime Act 1984. The fund relies on fines paid through guilty plea agreements and corporate out-of-court settlements.

However, in recent years there have been surprising cuts to VOCA due to bureaucratic changes and funding transfers.

Lawmakers, including Senator Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) expressed concerns About sudden drops. Recognizing the “historically low balance” in the Crime Victims Fund, he asked the Ministry of Justice for data on the whereabouts of the missing money.

Following the numbers, Grassley and three other GOP senators said “hundreds of millions of dollars in fines and penalties” foreign governments and the Department of Justice’s Working Capital Fund.

This is because many criminal cases are resolved out of court and are therefore not awarded to the VOCA fund.

“The Department of Justice appears to have the ability to retroactively amend corporate settlement agreements to ensure that criminal penalties are deposited into the Crime Victims Fund, which will be deposited elsewhere,” the senators wrote in their letter to the Justice Department.

A bipartisan solution

To stabilize the Crime Victims Fund, Congress is considering a new bipartisan bill. Crime Victims Fund Stabilization Act. As of November 14, 188 co-sponsors have signed on to prevent further cuts to VOCA donations.

Eight of North Carolina’s 14 representatives from both parties signed on, including Reps. Donald Davis (D-NC-1), Deborah Ross (D-NC-2), Jeff Jackson (D-NC-14), Patrick McHenry. (R-NC-10), Wiley Nickel (D-NC-13), Chuck Edwards (R-NC-11), Gregory Murphy (R-NC-3), and Kathy Manning (D-NC-6).

“I’m hopeful that VOCA will stabilize,” Farmer said. “Safehouses don’t have time to fund solutions. They are busy working hard.”