Protestors want state funding for domestic violence shelters put back

Oct. 5, 2009 | By Julie Small | KPCC
Download

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month. That has special importance for women’s shelters in California. The budget agreement the legislature and the governor reached in August cut $16 million in state funding for shelters. Without that money, some have stopped taking in women trying to escape violence at home. KPCC’s Julie Small says activists and lawmakers held a rally Monday in Sacramento to restore the funding.

Julie Small: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute of Justice surveyed thousands of women a few years back about domestic violence. The findings were frightening. More than 20 percent of the women in the survey said they’d been physically assaulted by an intimate partner at one time or another. Sue Else with the National Network to End Domestic Violence says the number of violent incidents only increases when the economy sours.

Sue Else: If there’s a job loss or if there’s problems in the home anyway, then this economy will exacerbate that. So more and more women are calling hotlines and needing services at the same time more and more of these services have received cuts.

Small: Else says other states have trimmed funding for domestic violence services, but none went as far as California did this summer. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger used his line item veto to eliminate all $16 million in state money for shelters. Press secretary Aaron McLear said the governor only made cuts because the legislature passed a budget that was $200 million in the red.

Aaron McLear: So he was forced to make some vetoes that he had not wanted to do otherwise. Some very difficult decisions forced by the legislature’s failure to send him a balanced budget.

Small: State Senator Leland Yee called the decision to cut domestic violence shelter funding a mistake.

Senator Leland Yee: When we have limited domestic violence counseling services, shelter services, then you’re going to have moms with children worry about where they’re going to go. And it’s going to be the difference between maybe staying in an abusive, in a violent situation or going homeless.

Small: Senator Yee says that’s not a decision any woman in California should face. The San Francisco Democrat introduced a bill that would have restored state funding for domestic violence shelters by borrowing for a fund for renewable energy. But in the wee hours of the final budget battle, Senate Republicans held back their votes. Yee says when the legislature reconvenes, he’ll reintroduce that bill. And he says this time, he’s got two Republican senators to vote for it.

Join our community: Like KPCC on Facebook and follow us on Twitter to get updates and talk about the day's news with other fans.

blog comments powered by Disqus