The Orange County Rape Crisis Center is facing dramatic funding cuts, leaving the nonprofit uncertain of the future of its programs and services.
Founded in 1979, the Orange County Rape Crisis Center, or OCRCC, serves approximately 600 survivors of rape and sexual trauma each year through free counseling, crisis support, hospital and court accompaniment and support groups.
Now, the fate of those services is unclear as the OCRCC faces a 25 percent loss in funding for the 2021 fiscal year due to budget cuts with the Victims of Crime Act.
The Victims of Crime Act, or VOCA, was passed by U.S. Congress in 1984 to establish the Crime Victim’s Fund. These funds, which are generated by fines paid by federal criminals, support services to six million victims annually through more than 6,000 direct service organizations – such as domestic violence shelters, child abuse treatment programs and rape crisis centers.
The OCRCC is just one of the thousands of organizations that receives support through VOCA.
“The VOCA funding is definitely the biggest portion of our funding,” said Rachel Valentine, the Executive Director of the Orange County Rape Crisis Center. “Last year VOCA granted a loan that accounted for a little more than half of our operating budget.”
VOCA funding allocation for the 2021 fiscal year was cut by more than $600 million dollars, which is set to have have lasting impacts on survivors and victim service providers.
“In North Carolina, all of the basic allocation – which is ‘hey you, you’re doing important work, you’re going to need some support to make that happen’ – that funding got cut anywhere from 40 to 60 percent with every program that I’ve spoken with,” Valentine said.
In response to these budget cuts, the OCRCC plans to significantly reduce its staffing, effective September 2021.
“Unfortunately, we’re going to be saying goodbye to about a third of our staff, which is definitely a bitter pill to swallow,” Valentine said. “We love our staff, and they do incredible work, and it’s the variances of nonprofit funding that are at play here. Every one of these people are doing incredible work on behalf of survivors and we’re really sorry to see them go.”
Valentine said the OCRCC is trying to structure its cuts in a way where critical services that have a “potential life and death impact” are not going to go away.
“So, 24-hour crisis lines are going to stay,” Valentine said. “Overnight and daytime accompaniment to the hospital – legal advocacy – case management to help people meet their basic needs – that’s all going to stay.”
While striving to keep these critical services, however, the center will have to reduce the number of support groups it is able to offer as well as cut its therapy caseload in half.
Additionally, Valentine said a service that is at particular risk is the agency’s SafeTouch program – where students learn that no one should touch their body in a way that makes them feel unsafe or uncomfortable. The program has operated in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools and Orange County Schools systems for 35 years and serves roughly 15,000 students and families annually.
As the center prepares to face dramatic budget cuts alongside thousands of other service organizations, Valentine said, while the future of certain programs is uncertain, the Orange County Rape Crisis Center is not going anywhere.
“We’re here, we’re invested, we’re a part of this community and there are times when we need to lean on the community a little bit more to make sure these services stay intact, and this is one of those times,” Valentine said. “But we’ve weathered ups and downs over the last almost 50 years that the organization has been around precisely because this community continues to demonstrate its care for survivors. So, even thought it’s going to be painful, here, inside these walls, for us to navigate how we maintain these services, that is our commitment – to maintain services that our community deserves.”
To learn more about the Orange County Rape Crisis Center’s mission, or to donate to the organization, click here.
Learn more about how to support survivors of sexual violence here.
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