DC Victim Services Alliance

Asian Pacific American Legal Victims and Their Children Need Our District Council Champions to Act
Resource Center
Contact: Now to Save their Lives.
Rebecca O’Connor
Asian Pacific Islander Domestic
202.299.1181
Violence Resource Project (DVRP)
boconnor@dccadv.org We know that tight budgets equal hard decisions. Proposed cuts to the Office of Victim
Services will sever the already meager lifeline of funding for victims of crime and their
Ayuda
families.
Break the Cycle
We call upon our champions in the District Council to ensure that we do not pay for the
Center for Child Protection and economic downturn with the lives of victims of crime and their children. The Council has
Family Support consistently demonstrated its commitment to this vulnerable population. Please do not turn
Children’s National Medical Center
your backs on them now.

DC Coalition Against Domestic
Violence
DC Rape Crisis Center
Deaf and Abused Women Network
(DAWN)
District Alliance for Safe Housing,
Inc. (DASH)
Domestic Violence Legal
Empowerment and Appeals Project
(DV LEAP)
HIPS
House of Ruth
Latin American Youth Center
Legal Aid Society
My Sister’s Place
National Law Center on
Homelessness and Poverty
Polaris Project
Ramona’s Way
Survivors and Advocates for
Empowerment (SAFE), Inc.
WEAVE, Inc.
Wendt Center for Loss and Healing
Safe Shores -The D.C. Children’s
Advocacy Center
The William Kellibrew Foundation
Contact: Rebecca O’Connor
boconnor@dccadv.org
202.299.1181 x 102
By 2012, the Victim’s Assistance Fund and the Domestic Violence Shelter Fund
will be emptied, leaving $0 in local funds for victims of crime! We can and must do
better. The District Council must create a dedicated revenue stream for victim services and
reject cuts to victim services.
 DC, where in just one day in September 2009, local domestic violence programs
served more than 390 men, women, and children, is one of the only jurisdictions in
the country without dedicated, sustainable funding to support these services. That
same day, 100 requests for service were unmet due to shortage of resources and
staff.
 DC has the only nationally recognized “best practice” model of crisis grief support
in the country (Wendt Center’s RECOVER Program) at the Office of the Chief
Medical Examiner providing services to over 2,500 individuals per year.
 No funding will force HIPS to shut down its 24-Hour-Hotline, which ensures
counseling and emergency assistance is just a phone call away for thousands of
men and women sex workers seeking safe and healthy lives. HIPS’s “Bad Date”
sheet, a tool for victims to share stories and warn others about perpetrators will also
disappear.
 HIPS assists more than 5,000 people on the District’s streets every Thursday,
Friday and Saturday during overnight hours. Sometimes offering counseling, other
times a friendly face, and others life-saving safer-sex supplies, HIPS employees
are often the first people victims tell about incidents of violence.
 Within the last 12 months, WEAVE served 1,206 survivors of domestic violence;
providing 274 clients with legal services; 99 clients with counseling services (for a
total of approximately 970 hours); and 833 individuals through education and
outreach.
 In FY10 the DC Rape Crisis Center counseled nearly 400 survivors of sexual
violence – 135 additional clients’ requests for service were unmet due to lack of
resources.
Responsible budgeting isn’t just about cutting: it’s about making responsible
choices to save and protect the city’s most vulnerable citizens.
 Eliminating funds for victim services will cost the city millions of dollars in health
care, law enforcement and other social costs.
 Victim Service agencies are a critical link in the District’s victim response safety net.
Destroying that leaves vital programs within the Metropolitan Police Department,
local hospitals, and the court system overwhelmed and under resourced.
  Nearly 25% of all doctor’s visits are based in mental health rather than physical concerns.
Added to this is the impact of crime victimization and the strong potential for significant
disorders like PTSD. Our programs restore healthy functioning to negate personal and
societal negative long term outcomes.
 The estimated annual cost of child abuse is $103.8 billion nationally. In 2008, the District of
Columbia had the second highest rate of child maltreatment – 3 times higher than the
national average.
 As many as 1,000 children annually are cared for by board-certified Child Abuse
Pediatricians and PEDI SANEs. In addition, pediatricians trained in the recognition of and
evaluation and treatment for child abuse review and provide expertise for over 900 children
annually through the physical and sexual abuse case review process of the legally-
mandated DC Multidisciplinary Team on Abuse.
 Since the adult SANE program began at Washington Hospital Center, the number of rape
survivors served in the District has more than doubled.
 90% of girls in the DC Rape Crisis Center’s after-school girls’ clubs have been victimized by
multiple forms of violence, including sexual violence.
 In 2010, the DC Rape Crisis Center has served more than 9,000 survivors of sexual assault
and rape – including nearly 200 youth.

Even absent further cuts, by 2012, the District will have NO funds available to support
victim services.
 Repeated cuts to OVS’s baseline budget mean the DC Victim’s Assistance Fund and the DC
Shelter Fund will be zeroed out by 2012 – severing the District’s lifeline for victims and their
children.
 Over the past five years, the District has invested in much needed shelter beds for victims
of crime. Emptying these funds will mean defaulting on these facilities and the loss of more
than 200 critical shelter beds – threatening to return us to the appalling 2007 level of just
48 or less.

Local programs are doing their part to streamline services and maximize efficiency.
 WEAVE staff, already reduced by 50% since 2009, experienced significant cuts when a
Federal legal services program was not renewed. Additional cuts have forced WEAVE to
reduce staff hours, reduce client service capabilities and exercise a hiring freeze for
vacated positions.

It is the responsibility of the City to protect its most vulnerable citizens. We are not doing our jobs if
women and children, victims of crime, are left with nowhere to go and no one to ask for help.

The DC Victim Services Alliance urges the Council to approve a one percent income tax increase on
income above $200,000 – a sensible, responsible way to raise $75 million to keep DC moving
forward.