Michael Kraft
Amanda LeBlanc, Executive Director of the North Coast Rape Crisis Team, staffed a rape crisis hotline at the age of 18. From that first call, she knew this was the work she was meant to do.
And who does the organization serve? To start, 1/3 of the sexual assault victims are children. The rest tend to be female and younger adults but run the demographic gamut. They are our fellow residents, hundreds of them.
Now, Amanda finds herself fighting for the existence of the North Coast Rape Crisis Team, or at least for the survival of a majority of the services the team provides to survivors.
Funds for the agency, along with several others in Humboldt, derive from the Victims of Crime Act, or VOCA. VOCA was signed into law by Ronald Reagan in the 80’s. Over the decades it has been, as Amanda puts it, “a nonpartisan no-brainer.” Those funds flow to the states. In California, that continues on to local efforts via Cal-OES, California’s Office of Emergency Services. Interestingly, VOCA funds are derived from fines assessed to offenders convicted of federal crimes, not from taxes paid by citizens. VOCA represents 85% of the team’s funding. The current administration, and budget plans making their way through Congress, have these dollars on the chopping block.
The state’s finances are also in bad shape, with budget priorities such as fire reconstruction and expected increases in Medi-Cal costs, despite some proposed enrollment cuts sucking the budgetary air out of the capitol rotunda. To put this in perspective, the increase in the state’s share of Medi-Cal expenditures is forecast to be about $7 billion. While still unclear, it appears that the expected federal hole to Cal-OES would cost somewhat less than 4% of that number, around $265 million. (In addition to funding rape crisis centers, Cal-OES is a major funding source to the state’s domestic violence agencies and court-appointed special advocates, or CASA’s. $265 million would largely replace the lost funds for all of these programs. It’s also worth mentioning that, at least on the North Coast, these services have very little duplication, and the three local organizations that provide them work together well.) The state has partially stepped up, however, and has allocated $100 million to partially fill the gap.
Please donate if you are moved to do so; get started here: https://ncrct.org/donate/. While local donations matter, they simply cannot replace the core dollars of VOCA/Cal-OES. For that reason, Amber asks that we reach out to our elected representatives “early and often.” There are also opportunities to serve on the board or to volunteer in other ways. Board members need to have a commitment to the cause, and the willingness to fundraise, and the volunteers who answer the crisis line will first need to complete an 80-hour training.
Currently, the agency’s services include staffing the crisis line 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. In the first three months of this year, the organization took 915 such calls. Every child who is interviewed as a victim, or possible victim, of sexual assault has a Rape Crisis Team advocate with them in every interview. Team members provide transportation and emergency supplies. Team members will also accompany people to court hearings, medical exams and other appointments involved with going through court and treatment processes. An education/prevention program has already been cut, as of earlier this year.
Some survivors engage in services over multiple years. In fact, Amanda says that it’s common for someone who was assaulted as a child to get in touch as an adult to seek help in processing what happened to them. There is no timeline on services.
I asked Amanda how she does it day after day, as this is just very hard stuff. She gave me two answers. First, when she’s not working, she leans into enjoying dancing and carbs. But in her work, it’s a highlight when she gets to spend time with a survivor and “watch them bloom.”
God, and government, willing, this work can continue.
Good Work is a series written by Michael Kraft, who volunteers on behalf of the Northern California Association of Nonprofits (NorCAN). NorCAN supports connections between people and organizations that work every day to keep our communities healthy and strong by offering professional development, board support, networking connections and more. Learn more at https://norcal-nonprofits.org/. To nominate a deserving nonprofit organization to be profiled, email michael@kraftconsultants.com.
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