Federal funding cuts could impact Louisiana sexual assault survivor groups
The Lafayette Parish coroner's office is taking over responsibility for sexual assault forensic medical exams in the Acadiana region. (Getty Images)
Organizations providing services to sexual assault survivors plan to ask Gov. Jeff Landry and the Louisiana Legislature for an extra $2 million in state funding this year. The groups say they need the money to insulate themselves from potential federal funding cuts.
'Without money coming in, all of our rape crisis centers and us as a coalition are not going to survive,' Rafael de Castro, executive director of the Louisiana Foundation Against Sexual Assault, said during a meeting of the Sexual Assault Oversight Commission last week. Louisiana's rape crisis centers are dependent on three types of federal funding to pay for almost all of their operations. One of those sources, which comes through the Victims of Crime Act, was slashed 40% last year and is expected to be cut another 40% before the end of the year, de Castro said.
The two other buckets of federal money come through the Violence Against Women Act, which expires in 2027 and could face a difficult renewal in Congress.
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Several of the competitive grants in the U.S. Department of Justice that rape crisis centers receive annually have also been in limbo since President Donald Trump took office, said Morgan Lamandre, president and CEO of Sexual Trauma Awareness and Response (STAR), the largest provider of survivor services in the state.
The missing money from the Victims of Crime Act alone threatens to close 12 to 14 local rape crisis centers in Louisiana before the end of the year. They currently operate in every Louisiana parish except for Catahoula, Concordia, LaSalle and Winn. The centers provide therapy, support groups, emergency hotlines and volunteers to accompany survivors to hospital. STAR also provides legal services for clients who need help with restraining orders, child custody matters and other civil disputes.
The survivor organizations ran into funding problems earlier this year when the Trump administration temporarily froze a wide swath of federal money it provides to states. Among the assistance held back was funding for sexual assault prevention programs, de Castro said. The centers were only able to avoid laying off staff because the Louisiana Department of Health backfilled the loss of federal funding for 30 days until the original grant funding started flowing again, he said.
Attorney General Liz Murrill and Gov. Jeff Landry's office will also appeal to U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to open up federal grants again for sexual assault services. Monica Taylor, Landry's director of human trafficking, said she and Murrill personally talked to Bondi about the issue. Taylor is also drafting a letter explaining how the federal funding in question is used in Louisiana, she said at the commission meeting last week. Louisiana is unusually dependent on the federal government for sexual assault survivor resources. The state provides money for sexual assault forensic medical exams – commonly called rape kits – but it directs no financial help to rape crisis centers for victim advocacy or counseling.
'There's no money specially allocated for those services,' Taylor said.
The Landry administration is working on legislation that would, for the first time, provide a steady source of state funding for rape crisis centers as well as domestic violence shelters and child advocacy centers, which support abuse victims who are minors.
Taylor said the proposal would bring a 'small amount of money through court fees that would go to all of those groups.' She declined to provide further details about the plan, which is still being drafted. State Rep. Kellee Hennessy Dickerson, R-Denham Springs, will sponsor the bill from the governor's office once it is finalized.
Lawmakers might have to be convinced that more money needs to be spent on sexual assault response. Members of the legislature, who are overwhelmingly men, aren't always aware of how significant the problem is, said Sen. Beth Mizell, R-Franklinton. 'They think the numbers are minute. They don't realize the number of victims that we are talking about,' Mizell said at the commission meeting. 'There's a general attitude of 'we've already put enough money into that.''
Taylor agreed that it will take a push from advocates and sexual assault survivors to convince legislators to make the services a budget priority. 'There are a lot of really good people in that building across the way,' Taylor said, referring to the State Capitol where legislators meet. 'But there are some who think this is somebody else's problem.'
'I just wish that the people in their lives who are hiding [as sexual assault survivors] would stand up to them,' she said.
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