Washington, D.C. — With just a few days left in the fiscal year and the House held captive by a small faction of MAGA extremists, who are using the government shutdown as leverage to pass their ultra-conservative agenda, it is increasingly unlikely that Congress will reach an agreement before the September 30 deadline. A new Center for American Progress column examines how a government shutdown could disrupt grant funding and stall essential resources for survivors of domestic violence, many of whom are women.
Domestic violence affects approximately 10 million people a year. A government shutdown would have significant effects on the Office on Violence Against Women, which just last fiscal year awarded nearly half a billion dollars to 750 grantees across the country to support survivors of domestic violence. These grants help provide services to survivors such as transitional housing, 24-hour hotlines for crisis intervention and referral services, and direct payments to survivors to change the locks on their homes. The CAP column reviews how a government shutdown would affect funding for these crucial services, compares a potential 2023 shutdown with the 2013 shutdown, and explores how a shutdown could create an even further backlog of rape kit processing in Washington, D.C.
“While MAGA extremists attempt to use a government shutdown as leverage to pass an extreme agenda, survivors of domestic violence will suffer the consequences of not having access to essential services—and the longer it lasts, the more survivors stand to suffer,” said Sara Estep, associate director of the Women’s Initiative at CAP and co-author of the column.
Read the column here: “How a Government Shutdown Would Affect Survivors of Domestic Violence” by Sara Estep and Becca Damante
For more information on this topic or to speak with an expert, please contact Sarah Nadeau at [email protected].