The Children’s Advocacy Center of Santa Clara County recently received a heart-rending call: A middle-school-aged girl had been a victim of sexual assault.
Afraid to call authorities because of her father’s immigration status, she instead reached out to an advocate at the center, who helped her file a police report, obtain a medical exam and connect to services that might help her cope with a moment of profound trauma.
The San Jose-based center helps many child survivors of physical abuse, sexual abuse and neglect. Since the start of the pandemic, the need for its services — and those of a handful of other victims’ advocacy centers around the county — has only grown.
But the design of a 50-year-old law could slash funding for such groups unless Congress or the state of California intervenes, resulting in cuts to services and staff that many describe as potentially devastating.
“To think that somebody who goes through something so traumatic as a rape or an assault, or heaven forbid a child goes through that, and they’re not able to access appropriate services. It makes my throat close,” said Adriana Caldera Boroffice, CEO of YWCA of Golden Gate Silicon Valley, which provides services at the Center. “That’s the part that’s chilling.”
In 1984, Congress passed the Victims of Crime Act that set up a pool of money states could use to serve victims of crimes. Over the last five decades, the law has helped channel billions of dollars in aid to millions of victims of domestic violence, elder and child abuse, human trafficking, sexual assault and more, making it the largest source of funding for victims’ services in the nation and in California, according to the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence.
Rather than draw money from taxpayer dollars, however, the law funnels fines and fees collected from federal crimes. A drop in collected fees is projected to shrink funds by around a third in California, from $154 million this year to as low as $105 million in 2024.
“We are thinking every day about how we need to be doing more for victims of crime, and instead we’re gonna have to cut by a third,” said
James Gibbons-Shapiro, Santa Clara County assistant district attorney, speaks to The Mercury News at the Children’s Advocacy Center. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
James Gibbons-Shapiro, an assistant district attorney in Santa Clara County. “It’s monumental and disastrous.”
The cuts would force victims’ advocacy organizations to trim staff and services across the county. At the Children’s Advocacy Center, that would include cutting weekend and after-hours advocacy services, leaving some children and families to navigate forensic interviews and medical exams on their own.
Elsewhere in San Jose, Asian Americans for Community Involvement, which serves victims of domestic violence with its shelter and 24-hour hotline, may lose the resources to properly staff the hotline.
“Not having access to be able to run the hotline 24/7 — not having staffing to do that — it really puts a lot of survivors at risk,” says Sarita Kohli, CEO of the organization.
The weeks after leaving an abuser is the time when a survivor of domestic violence is statistically most likely to be killed by their abuser. Without a safe place to go, Kohli fears that “intervention might come too late.”
For children who are victims of abuse, a lack of proper care can increase the risk of mental health issues, chronic school absenteeism, drug use and abuse, and suicidal ideation, said Jennifer Puthoff, Program Manager for the Children’s Advocacy Center.
“These cuts are going to be disastrous,” she said.
The cuts will also have disproportionate effects on populations that are already vulnerable.
Community Solutions, a Gilroy-based non-profit, is among the few providers of victims’ services serving south Santa Clara County and the only confidential provider for San Benito County. Nearly a third of its clients are undocumented, almost half speak only Spanish, and many of them speak less-common indigenous Mexican languages such as Triqui. Funds from the crime act supply 80% of their services to survivors of sexual assault, allowing them to provide crucial aid such as 24-hour in-person response and advocates to accompany survivors through forensic exams.
Without federal funding, “I don’t know how you would do that,” said Perla Flores, program director at Community Solutions. “We’ve never been in this kind of situation before.”
Further north, Asian Americans for Community Involvement in San Jose provides services to immigrants in over 40 languages. Both immigration status and language barriers can make it more difficult for victims of abuse to seek aid, because their abusers may hold their immigration documentation hostage or take advantage of their partners’ not speaking English.
Additionally, those who seek victims services are largely low-income; 85% of clients, for instance, at the YWCA of Golden Gate Silicon Valley are low income.
At the same time, the number of people seeking help has increased dramatically in the past five years. According to data from the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s office, domestic violence calls have increased 17% from 2018 and reported rapes by 41% in the same period. However, these crimes are often under-reported: While YWCA served 900 survivors in 2018, that number has since skyrocketed to 5,000 last year.
“Sadly, we’re seeing a reduction in funding where, even at the current funding level, it isn’t enough. There are far more cases out there than the capacity of most programs,” said Tasia Wiggins, victims services director for the Santa Clara County D.A. “We need more people, not less. We need more funding, not less.”
From left to right, Jennifer Puthoff, program manager at the Children’s Advocacy Center, Tasia Wiggins, Santa Clara County director of victim services, and James Gibbons-Shapiro, Santa Clara County assistant district attorney, speak to The Mercury News at the center in San Jose, Calif., on Wednesday, Dec. 6, 2023. (Nhat V. Meyer/Bay Area News Group)
In the fight for funding, many California-based organizations have lobbied their Congressmembers to shore up funding nationwide for survivors of violent crimes.
Christopher Negri, associate director of public policy strategies at the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, said that between congressional speaker disputes, budget woes and bureaucratic hurdles, the funding seemed unlikely to move forward through Congress in a timely manner, leading some advocates to shift their efforts to state legislators. “It is up to the state to ensure that programs are able to meet the needs of survivors,” he said.
Negri and his allies are asking the state for $200 million to cover the expected shortfall over the coming years. They are attempting to drum up public support ahead of the creation of the state budget this January, asking state residents to call their local representatives and legislators to ask for the funding.
Regardless, many advocates say the current funding woes point to the need for more sustainable solutions that don’t fluctuate with the number of federal crime arrests.
Meanwhile, many organizations are tightening their belts and preparing for the worst by holding off on new hires and cobbling together funding and tax breaks.
Even in the face of uncertainty, the groups that help victims can and must find a way to survive, Flores said. “We can’t shut down our crisis line or say we’re not going to respond in person,” she said. “We have to figure out how to not leave survivors out in the cold.”
