WASHINGTON — The 13 domestic violence resource centers in Washington have been hurt financially by the partial federal government shutdown, and the burden will continue even after the government is up and running, according to the officials from domestic violence shelters.
D.C. Coalition Against Domestic Violence Executive Director Karma Cottman said not only are the shelters and other programs strapped financially, they are dealing with upticks in domestic violence victims seeking help because of the government turmoil. The coalition represents the 13 centers.
“We have seen some programs with a 50 percent increase in victims needing assistance in the past month,” Cottmann said. “The violence gets more lethal, and we see more people who just need basic needs met. Someone who may have normally gone to a homeless shelter is coming to a domestic violence shelter because that homeless shelter can’t accept intakes.”
DASH DC — District Alliance for Safe Housing — normally has 25 victims in a month seeking shelter. In the past month they have had 44 walk-ins, according to Shakeita Boyd, community housing program director.
Additionally, the center doesn’t monitor the number of calls coming into their resource hotline “but our phone lines have been jumping since the shutdown,” Boyd said.
D.C. Safe gets its largest number of victims during the summer, when children are out of school and the parent can more easily make an escape. The number of victims has been remaining steady during the fall.
“The fact that we haven’t yet seen a drop-off is telling of how the shutdown is affecting domestic violence,” said director Natalia Otero.
Even with an end in sight for the government shutdown, the financial burden won’t go away overnight, said Peg Hacskaylo, executive director of DASH D.C.
“Money that would have normally gone to crisis situations is instead just going to help patch up the financial damage done by the shutdown,” she said.
In addition, federally funded shelters have not been receiving their federal grant money, which means they have been running on reserve money, drawing down emergency funds, according to Cottman.
Hacskaylo said the effects of the shutdown also will not go away immediately for shelter clients. When you have been away from work for a while, you still have a lot of unpaid bills to face even when you get back to normal, she said.
“We have a resident who runs a food truck, and food trucks have been hit hard with all of the furloughed workers around Capitol Hill,” Hacskaylo said. “That is going to result in a long term financial hardship for her, as well as other clients who are also going to need continued resources while they play catch-up.
D.C. Safe raised more than $19,000 by Tuesday to keep its lights on. But there are other obstacles for clients.
“We had a client whose partner ran up her electric bill then stole her EBT card,” said Otero. “We tried to help her, but the resources we normally refer clients to weren’t able to help her. So we had to fundraise.
“We were able to find a sponsor for her, but we have to treat situations like that on a case-by-case base now,” Otero said.
Helping people find their footing after domestic violence is especially hard for centers now, with fewer resources and more intakes, officials said.
“People come to our program to get their lives back together, and we are just trying to help people reestablish themselves,” Hacskaylo said. “But these games that Congress is playing in undermining all of the work we do.”