On September 30, the contracts funding New York’s rape crisis centers, domestic violence programs, and child advocacy centers expire. On October 1, Domestic Violence Awareness Month begins. The ribbons go up the morning after the money runs out.
New York will re-fund its programs — but for many of them, at a fraction of what they asked for. This year, 316 organizations applied to the state’s Office of Victim Services for $626.1 million over two years. The office had $126.5 million a year to give. The Crime Victims Assistance Center in Broome County is absorbing a 70 percent cut. Fearless! Hudson Valley, which serves survivors in Orange and Sullivan counties, is losing nearly a third of its funding — about $500,000 a year.
“You can’t build public safety on leftovers,” said Christine Battisti, the Crime Victims Assistance Center’s executive director.
After weeks of pressure from advocates, Governor Kathy Hochul announced an additional $36 million on August 31 — $11.7 million for licensed domestic violence providers, $11.7 million for certified rape crisis centers, $4.8 million for child advocacy centers — bringing the state’s annual investment to $162.5 million, which her office called the largest single-year investment in victim services in the state’s history. It is both things at once: a record investment, and not enough. “We need to fully understand the impact of this additional funding in every region,” said Emily Miles of the Alliance Against Sexual Violence, who called for a more stable and sustainable approach to funding.
Why the largest investment in history still leaves cuts
The gap is not a New York problem. It is a federal one, landing state by state.
Most victim services in America are not paid for by taxes. They are paid for by the federal Crime Victims Fund, created by the Victims of Crime Act in 1984 and financed by fines and penalties from federal criminal cases. When those deposits fall — and they have been falling for years — the grants that flow to every state fall with them. Advocates from Safe Horizon in New York to the Urban Institute in Washington have been documenting the same arithmetic: demand for services rising, the fund that pays for them shrinking, and states deciding one budget cycle at a time how much of the difference to cover.
A survivor calling a hotline does not know any of this, and should not have to. She knows that a trained advocate answered, or didn’t. That there was a bed, or a waitlist. That someone could sit with her at the courthouse, or couldn’t. The people who provide those services are still there — stretched across more need with less money, in New York and in most other states.
Awareness month, arriving as the safety net frays
The organization that runs the national DVAM campaign saw this coming. The Domestic Violence Awareness Project’s 2026 theme is “With Survivors, Always,” and its materials name the moment directly: violence minimized, services cut, barriers to safety not getting smaller. The campaign’s own summary is four words long: survivors deserve action.
This October, action has an unusually concrete meaning. The funded system — shelters, crisis lines, court advocates, child advocacy centers — runs on budgets that legislators set and voters influence. If you have ever wondered what to do with an awareness month beyond wearing purple, this is the year the answer is specific: tell your state representatives that victim services need stable, sustainable funding, not year-to-year rescue packages. New York’s advocates just demonstrated that pressure works. Thirty-six million dollars appeared in a week because people made noise.
The door that doesn’t close
There is one kind of support no budget line can cancel.
TAR Anon® is STAR Network®’s free, anonymous, worldwide peer fellowship for people healing from Toxic Abusive Relationships™. It has no grant cycle. It has no contract that expires September 30. It meets virtually, costs nothing, requires no referral and no insurance, and nobody has to have language for what happened yet.
It is not a substitute for a rape crisis center, a shelter bed, or a court advocate — survivors need those, funded and staffed, which is exactly why the paragraph above this one matters. Fellowship is the other layer: the human connection that holds between crisis services, after them, and in the long stretch of recovery when no agency has a program for you. When funding rises and when it falls, that room is open.
If you are a STAR reading this, you don’t have to navigate life after abuse alone. TAR Anon meetings are free, anonymous, and open worldwide — this month, next month, and every budget year after that.
