Last year, over 230,000 cases of domestic violence were reported in New York City. Despite this, only one one-hundredth of a percent of the NYC budget goes directly to resources for domestic violence survivors on average over the past six years.
Of the nearly 70 different organizations listed by the Mayor’s Office dedicated to providing support to survivors, many of those physical facilities have closed during the pandemic, despite increased demand for their services. Calls to help hotlines have significantly increased during the pandemic. However, how accessible are those limited resources?
The Mayor’s Office to End Domestic and Gender Based Misconduct compiles an annual list of service centers available to support survivors of domestic and intimate partner violence. This year’s list comprises over 300 service centers. However, a closed look into the composition of these service providers reveals an overall lack of resources.
Nearly two hundred of the three hundred services are located at police stations. They are Safe Horizons representatives stationed at each precinct as a part of their Crime Victim Assistance Program, meant to serve as a support system for any survivors who come into the precinct. However, immigrant communities, undocumented people, and other people of color can feel tentativeness when dealing with law enforcement, leaving these resources less accessible to such communities. There is also a disproportionate number of survivors who are related to the law enforcement industry. Having facilities in precincts may inhibit them from accessing these resources as well.
Geographically, the placement of these facilities does not always correspond to where there is the greatest need. For example, in Brownsville, there are fewer facilities than in the East Village despite having a greater number of reported cases of Domestic Violence Incidents. Similarly, while most of the Spanish-speaking population is concentrated in South Bronx and Central Queens, only twenty of the 175 facilities with Spanish speaking services are found in neighborhoods where over 35 percent of the population speaks Spanish.
Further, there is little diversity in services available languages outside of English and Spanish. English and Spanish are the most represented by far, but other than that few facilities have Chinese, Korean, French, Hindi and Bengali. The other most common languages in New York, Chinese, Russian, French or French Creole, and Bengali, have fewer than fifty service centers each that have translation services in their respective language.
“Physical centers are more accessible as long as it’s in the community. Many clients don’t feel as comfortable going downtown. For a single parent, with a job, and children, it can be a real trek. One hour there, one hour back. Also, for those who still live with their batterer, they can use errands to pop into our office,” Sarah Crawford Banda, the Domestic Violence Project Director at the North Manhattan Improvement Corporation said.
Banda’s organization works primarily with residents of Northern Manhattan and Western and South Bronx, a lot of Spanish dominant immigrants. However, she said that her organization would not turn away Spanish-speaking immigrants from other parts of the city as service centers with Spanish-speaking abilities aren’t readily available across the city.
“We don’t know if some centers have translation services readily available, or if they only come in once a week. Our word of mouth is community. We work mostly with Spanish-speakers and have programming that is more inclusive, and geared for people of our community, so they feel more comfortable coming here. Community trusts community.”
These service centers provide a range of aid, from helping make a safety plan and emotional counseling to legal services and providing housing. But the problem is less about making services accessible than making services available. Locating where the physical facilities are, basic resources are fairly easy these days with tools like the internet and cell phones. The real problem lies within supply and demand. While language and location may be a barrier, the larger issue to access is simply a dearth of service centers to begin with.
“Enough agencies are doing the work, there are places people can reach out to and comfortable reaching out to, the problem is those agencies don’t have the funds to help everyone,” Citywide Director of the Family and Domestic Violence Unit at Legal Aid Laura Russell said. “[Survivors] are taking a giant step of reaching out, and the other person on the phone says we don’t have space. [They] will literally go down the alphabet [calling domestic violence services], and they will call me back and be like which one is this again?”
According to the National Network to End Domestic Violence, the greatest resource in demand is housing, this includes emergency shelters and transitional housing. Over the last five years, on average 60 percent of unmet service requests in New York state were for housing. And nearly all of the staff positions eliminated within local programs were “direct service providers, such as shelter staff or legal advocates.”
According to Senior Director of Elder Abuse Prevention Services at JASA (Jewish Association Serving the Aging) Martha Pollack, the service most needed is rent assistance and eviction guidance.
“Many of our clients are landlords who would like to evict their tenants [who are abusers], but they can't get free legal services to do that. The tenant can, no matter what their status is, whether they're abusing or not, but the landlords do not have access to free legal services to assist them in the eviction process. And that can be devastating because not everyone can afford a lawyer,”
Legal counsel is not guaranteed for many of the processes common to domestic violence. There is no right to counsel for those going through a divorce, or for domestic violence survivors in housing court in New York City. Though there are resources such as the Matrimonial Pro Bono Project, and Legal Aid which provide free legal sources.
Movements to have such rights enshrined within New York City laws have been in the work since at least 2018. Councilmember Mark Treyger introduced a bill that would require the Office of Civil Justice Coordinator to guarantee free legal services for divorce proceedings. Similarly, the Right to Counsel Coalition called for an expansion of access beyond just low-income residents of New York in February of 2020.
Pollack also noted that low salaries and lack of funding for salaries are inhibiting factors when looking to hire social workers and lawyers with polyglot abilities.
Funding for domestic violence resources comes from the city, state, and federal agencies. The federal Violence Against Women Act allocates money towards funding organizations that support survivors of domestic violence. The New York state government dedicates only $5.6 million of its $194 billion budget to the Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence in 2020. However, funds allocated to the Criminal Justice Services, and Social Welfare departments are also used for services that can benefit survivors.
In New York City, the expense budget allocates only 0.01 percent of its budget to domestic violence resources. Last year, that equated to just over $12 million. That funding is divided amongst the Administration for Children Services and the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice. This money primarily goes to supporting the Supportive Alternatives to Violent Encounters (SAVE) and Domestic Violence and Empowerment (DoVE) Initiative programs. Which in turn distributes the money to more local organizations such as the Arab-American Family Support Center, the Battered Women’s Resource Center, and Sakhi for South Asian Women. Grants average at $45,000 per organization, except Safe Horizons, the administrator for this program, which receives $762,500
Domestic Violence resources are categorized under the miscellaneous portion of the budget which includes other contracts, that barely account for one percent of the total costs. Half of the annual budget is usually taken by the Department of Education, followed by the Police Department and Department of Corrections which receive 12 percent, around $5.5 billion. Including the department’s operating budget and central expenses, its total funding was $10.9 billion.
Meanwhile, many have called for Mayor de Blasio to cut police funding and redistribute the money to social services in light of the death of George Floyd. De Blasio announced his intention to cut $1 billion from the NYPD’s budget, however, in the 2021 financial year, the NYPD’s budget fell just 0.39 percent.
“Everybody is at capacity and there’s no more funding coming through, and every minute they’re talking about cutting funding,” said Russell. “There’s just not enough money to fund everything that’s needed in the city, state, and federal government you’re robbing Peter to pay Paul. If I say domestic violence is important, there’s not an infinite pot of money. Lobbying to get more money in the DV budget is great, but we recognize that other money gets cut because of it.”