Crime victim service nonprofits in Michigan sound alarm for decreases in federal funding
Pinwheels in downtown Lansing mark the Children's Trust Fund's 14th annual Child Abuse Prevention Awareness Day rally, April 26, 2022 | Laina G. Stebbins
Groups that provide crime victims access to emergency shelter, counseling, food assistance and more are at risk of closing as federal funding for victim services has been on a steady decline in recent years while need has increased in Michigan, nonprofit groups in the state are warning.
Prevention is a key tool in fighting against domestic and sexual violence, Betsy Huggett, director of the Diane Peppler Resource Center in Sault Ste. Marie told the Michigan Advance, but trims to federal funding have meant community programs to build awareness for violence for students haven't been possible as the center operates in 'famine' mode.
The center's staff of 14 wear a lot of hats in order to maintain the shelter for survivors and their families and ensure individuals and their loved ones can exit dangerous living situations, Huggett said. She said she's proud that the center has navigated many storms like keeping the majority of its staff on the payroll during the COVID-19 pandemic, but she wonders how much more the organization could do if it had more sustainable funding.
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'We know the rug could be pulled out from under us at any time so we just keep staying in the famine mindset…there were a lot of things that we used to be able to do that made a huge impact in the community,' Huggett said.
The Victims of Crime Act, or VOCA, the main federal funding program distributing states funds to provide services to victims of crimes such as child abuse, domestic and sexual assault, elder abuse and more has seen steep decreases nationwide in recent years.
Michigan saw a 42% chop in VOCA funding for victim services last year compared to the 2023 VOCA amount which is funded by fines and penalties from federal cases, with a large portion coming from the prosecution of white collar financial crime which has been on a years-long decline, expected to decline further under President Donald Trump.
Michigan, like most states, has taken on the cost burden of keeping domestic violence shelters and other resources open by supplementing the funds lost through use of the state budget. However, Michigan is still falling short as it struggles to maintain funding levels while the cost of services has shot up, Johanna Kononen, director of law and policy for the Michigan Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, or MCEDSV, told the Advance.
The 2024 fiscal year Michigan state budget allocated $30 million for victim services being provided by more than 100 organizations across the state. Now MCEDSV is seeking $75 million for organizations in the state budget through a campaign, '75 Saves Lives' to encourage lawmakers crafting the next budget to recognize the consequences for crime victims if organizations aren't able to provide services.
When it comes to topics like domestic and sexual violence, which hold stigma and shame in conversations, there can be an illusion that those kinds of crimes happen to other people and don't impact the lives of all Michiganders, Kononen said.
But nationwide estimates find that more than half of women and almost one in three men will experience sexual violence in their lifetime while domestic violence impacts 10 million Americans annually, including intimate partner violence and child abuse.
'Oftentimes, it's easy to [say] 'this hasn't happened to me and so this isn't impacting me. Why should we prioritize this as a state?'. But unfortunately, statistically speaking, if you don't know someone who's been impacted by domestic or sexual violence, it's because they haven't told you,' Kononen said.
Nobody wants to think about sexual violence, especially when it comes to children being the victims, Melissa Werkman, President of Children's Advocacy Centers of Michigan said, but the reality is 1 in 7 children have experienced abuse or neglect in the last year in the U.S. which equals about 300,000 of Michigan's kids.
VOCA dollars almost exclusively fund the frontline workers at Michigan's 40 children's advocacy centers, Werkman told the Advance, meaning the forensic interviewers for children who've experienced violence, victim advocates who guide families towards healing after abuse and medical professionals who offer care, all at low to no cost.
The goal of children's advocacy centers is to respond to violence in a child's life in a way that is geared towards them and their healing amidst systems that were not built for children, Werkman said. When talking to the public about the value of the centers, Werkman said a lot of people expect the centers to be shrouded in discomfort, sadness and confusion, but the truth is this work helps kids get back to being kids.
'The kids are excited to come to their therapy appointments. They walk right in and they know the intake coordinator and they're excited to see the therapy dog. That is what we give kids back. We most importantly beyond the justice aspect of it, beyond the advocacy aspect and therapy aspect, we give kids their agency back,' Werkman said.
Without VOCA, there are no children's advocacy centers, Werkman said, because as much as 85% of a center's budget can come from those federal funds. Given the decline in funding, children's advocacy centers in Michigan on average are operating on a funding gap of over $100,000 and smaller rural centers providing care to multiple counties where resources are strained are most at risk of closing their doors.
Having to stop funding a counselor or close down a shelter is a terrible decision for a victim organization to face, but it's especially ominous for tribal communities where some programs for an area have only one victim advocate and there is only one tribal domestic and sexual violence shelter in the state, Stacey Ettawageshik, executive director of Uniting Three Fires Against Violence said to the Advance.
Uniting Three Fires Against Violence, a tribal victim advocacy group providing training and advocacy for the 12 tribal programs in Michigan providing domestic and sexual violence care, has done a lot of work to get tribal issues a voice in Lansing, Ettawageshik said. For a demographic of people who experience violence at a drastically disproportionate rate than their white counterparts, Ettawageshik said tribal groups have worked 10 times as hard as other violence programs to get their portion of funding.
There's a historic lack of trust in non-tribal organizations claiming to help Native Americans, an example being Indian residential schools in Michigan which stole hundreds of Anishinaabe children from their homes and subjected them to years of abuse and culture erasure, Ettawageshik said.
Pain and resilience: The legacy of Native American boarding schools in Michigan
Tribal programs come from a trauma-formed approach that includes historical knowledge of how violence has impacted Michiganders from tribal communities and can administer culturally honoring services and sacred medicines like sage, cedar, sweet grass and tobacco, Ettawageshik said.
'We've come so far [with] tribal programs getting access to these resources in the first place that it will just be taken away in a heartbeat and where does that leave us?,' Ettawageshik said. 'That leaves us back at square one… losing that funding. Losing that support is going to make a huge impact on our communities that already experience higher levels of substance use, homelessness, increased violence and that violence is really committed most of the time by non-natives.'
While President Donald Trump's administration has placed a strong focus on cutting what it labels as erroneous federal spending and usage of taxpayer dollars for programs not aligning with the administration's values, Kononen said it's imperative for residents and policymakers to understand that VOCA is funded through criminals having to pay for their crimes.
'I think it's very easy for people to see what's happening in the federal government and think that that's something that's happening really far away… that doesn't have anything to do with me here in my town in Michigan and the services that my community needs,' Kononen said. 'It's a tricky topic to broach with people, and it makes it seem kind of academic like this is a line item in the budget when these are real people who are getting life-saving help.'
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