At My Sister’s Place, a domestic violence shelter serving Athens, Hocking and Vinton counties, the urgent need for more resources is clear every single day. With only 11 emergency shelter beds and three transitional housing units to serve three counties, we turn away 175 to 200 families each year for lack of space. We hear the distress every day over our hotline, as we listen to people’s fear and pain, but lack the space to offer them all shelter.
Given the small size of our facility, the $20 million in additional funding for domestic violence services in Ohio that Gov. Mike DeWine and Attorney General Dave Yost are recommending be included in the state budget for 2024–2025 is crucial. That funding could be a lifeline for survivors of intimate partner abuse — coming at a time when federal funding for domestic violence services in Ohio has been reduced by 60% since 2019.
This state funding can save lives. In the fiscal year ending in June 2022, Ohio reported 81 victims killed in domestic violence cases, along with 31 perpetrators. The victims ranged in age from a 90-year-old woman to 22 children — the greatest number of children killed in domestic violence incidents ever in a year in Ohio. Six of those fatalities were just babies, including a day-old infant.
Providing additional state funding will make a real impact on our ability to help survivors of domestic violence, allowing our agency to put more resources into helping survivors find services outside the shelter and to provide case management to help them sort through options. Often, survivors of domestic violence have a constellation of needs, including food insecurity, transportation concerns, mental health issues or back utility bills. Even if they can find safe, affordable housing ,some teeter on the edge of houselessness — with just one more unpaid bill pushing them towards the edge. With more resources, our agency can help survivors become more stable and access available community services.
Our emergency shelter also has a kennel, because often an abuser will use mistreatment of or threats to the family pet as leverage — telling a survivor they will kill or hurt the animal if the survivor tries to flee. Now, families can bring their pets with them, removing a barrier to seeking emergency shelter, and with the pets often providing tremendous solace and comfort to children experiencing trauma.
So every dollar for domestic violence services counts. Because of shortages of funding, we have been forced to cut back on our counseling program, leading to longer wait times for survivors in need. Staff training has been curtailed, and we increasingly rely on community donations for basic needs. Domestic violence programs should not need to wonder how their operating budgets will be met. We need stable funding for these critical community programs.
A 2023 survey of domestic violence programs across the state conducted by the Ohio Domestic Violence Network found that more than half were eliminating or reducing programs focused on preventing domestic violence — even though our experience shows that targeted community education focuses on healthy relationships and available resources can, in the long run, save taxpayers money in police and emergency response, medical costs and more.
I urge our legislators to support the effort by Ohio’s governor and attorney general to increase dedicated funding for domestic violence service by the $20 million suggested over the next two year. It may well save lives.
And it’s a first step towards bringing our state closer to spending parity with surrounding states. Currently, Ohio spends 32 cents per capita on domestic violence services, compared with 92 cents for Indiana, $1.41 for West Virginia, $1.56 for Pennsylvania and $2.54 for Kentucky.
The additional line-item funding would bring Ohio’s per capita rate up to 85 cents — a necessary move in the right direction.
Kelly Madewell is executive director of My Sister’s Place, a domestic violence shelter serving Athens, Hocking and Vinton counties
