Domestic Violence Support Groups Reel From Budget Cuts

Survivors of domestic violence and their families frequently ask Amanda a financial cost, spots in a shelter or other aid. Recently, the cost and its staff have used to refuse these requests.

“While we continue to see reductions in funding, we have to say no,” explains Cost, executive director of Partners for Peace Maine, one of the oldest domestic violence organizations in the country.

Peace partners are one of the hundreds of support groups for domestic violence that have undergone dramatic budget cuts in recent years, noting their ability to operate. Their difficult situation will probably become even worse at the end of this year: the budget of President Donald Trump in 2026, which begins on October 1, 2025, offers $ 200 million in discounts to grant programs to the Office of Violence against Women, one of the main sources of funding for many organizations in the field.

Funding discounts have already forced groups to close shelters for victims of domestic violence, reduce hot line hours and other emergency aids, remove long -standing prevention and community programs, and bind workers or keep low personnel levels through attrition. These organizations already operate without enough money or staff, explains Terra Poore, political director of the National Alliance to End Sexual Violence, a non -profit organization DC which represents 1,000 centers of community rape crisis.

“Many of these programs operate with a stop budget with little reserve,” she says. “These are small employers in their community, and not know if they will be able to rely on these subsidies have meant certain difficult decisions, which has a huge impact on their ability to provide services.”

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One of the main reasons for the cuts is that the victims of crimes ‘fund – one of the main sources of programs’ financing like these – is down. The fund was created by the law on the victims of crime of 1984, or voca, and has been relatively stable for years. He obtained voca money entirely by fines and sanctions collected through federal criminal cases concerning business fraud, white collar crimes and other federal offenses. But because the Ministry of Justice has reached more colonies in criminal affairs in white collar in recent years, this funding is lagging behind what it was, says Poore. In 2024, for example, the financing of the voca dropped by 40%, she said.

Defenders of victims of domestic and sexual violence had to ask the government to release more voca funds, she said because there was a lot of money seated there. They no longer have this problem.

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The numerous layoffs of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) earlier in 2025 also had an impact on domestic violence groups, as they reduced staff to the national injury prevention and control center, including those that oversee programs such as domestic violence prevention programs (RPE). The president’s budget in 2026 proposes to combine the financing of these programs, which currently receive $ 7.5 million and $ 61.75 million per year, and considerably reducing it to only $ 38 million per year for both.

“What we know is that there is a perfect storm in the world of funding where many comfortable funds have dried; We have experienced voca cuts, and there is just a categorical fear of what the new budget could bring, “explains Stephanie Love-Patterson, president and chief executive officer of the national network to end domestic violence.

CDC layoffs mean that domestic violence groups no longer supervise their programs at the federal level, explains Kathleen Lockwood, political director of the North Carolina coalition against domestic violence, an affected program. This means less coordination between state coalitions and domestic violence prevention programs in the community, she said.

The NC coalition against domestic violence experienced a 60% drop in financing between 2018 and 2024 due to a decrease in vocal financing, she says, at a time when the demand for services increases. The group served 75% more victims in 2023 than in 2018, says Lockwood, even if the funding has dropped.

“Right now, we are working to try to create something lasting on what is left,” she says.

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Wisconsin saw its voca funding fall to only $ 13 million in 2024, against $ 44 million in 2019, which caused major interruptions in domestic violence organizations through the State, said Monique Minkens, executive director of domestic violence Wisconsin, a state -of -scale coalition that helps support domestic violence organizations. Programs that obtain a million dollars in federal subsidies now obtain $ 250,000. One of the programs partners lost 9 staff members due to the cuts; Another closed his shelter. Another has further reduced the hours of its crisis hotline. “I think of how we are generally as a use when people call,” said Minkens. “It is useful not to receive a recording.”

Minkens is worried that these cuts arrive as an economic slowdown is looming, which often aggravates situations for victims of domestic violence due to financial stress. “It’s life or death,” she said. “People will die.”

Voca reductions and other cuts also affected the healthy spirit program to Crisis Center in Birmingham, Alberta. It is important that these nurses are available 24/7, regardless of the time of year, explains Angela Trimm, the healthy coordinator of the crisis center. However, the financing of the program was reduced by 22% earlier this year, and Trimm said that it had recently learned that its funding would be reduced between 10 and 25%.

When other centers or organizations for victims of sexual assault close, the workload of the healthy program increases, says Trimm. “We are dealing with an increased customer charge and a decrease in financing,” she says.

Staff discounts also exert pressure on the remaining workers, who take care of mental and emotional tasks every day. Some leave after having exhausted themselves and organizations find it difficult to recruit trained professionals ready to do work for a low salary and long hours. Many people who work in support organizations for domestic violence are themselves survivors.

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“There is a huge amount of absorbent trauma, to testify directly to suffering and danger, but they cannot do this five days a week and also be on the call at night,” explains Francine Garland Stark, executive director of the Maine coalition to end domestic violence.

Lawyers say that the federal government must find a new way to finance these important organizations, because the financing of voca is not sustainable. Many support programs for domestic violence do not receive any funding from the state and are not based on federal funding, which is a difficult position to be currently due to sudden cuts and budgetary uncertainty. Some groups support the law on the stabilization of victims of crime victims, which was introduced to the House in 2024 and which would redirect money from the False Claims Act, which allows the government to pursue the people who have defrauded it, to the victims of crimes until 2029.

“Imagine that you have a woman, and she has a small window of opportunity where it seems that it is the right time for me to leave; She tries her hand for the hotline, and there are no staff there, ”explains Love-Patterson, of the national network to end domestic violence. “She will stay; She will be discouraged, and the unfortunate reality is that she and her children will continue to be injured. ”

In Maine, Amanda Cost has held open positions due to imminent cuts. When the voca funds disappeared in 2024, the state of Maine put its own resources to replace them, she says, but she knows that this cannot happen forever. She combined positions and asking staff to do more with less, ending certain programs as support groups for survivors.

While she restricts the funding and pares of the programs, she has the impression that she saw the same thing happening in the community around her: rural hospitals anticipate cuts, the police cannot find enough agents and public schools try to tinker with money so that the programs work.