The federal government is cutting more than $2.8 million in funding for a national group that supports victims of crime, the group said Thursday. And those cuts will impact victims in need of support in Charlotte and the Carolinas.
The National Center for Victims of Crime received an email on Tuesday from the Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs, titled ‘Notice of Termination’. The cuts will impact three of the nonprofit’s programs.
One cut will result in the termination of the group's free hotline for crime victims. The hotline supports about 16,000 callers every year. Between January 2024 and March of this year, 388 people were served from North Carolina through the hotline.
"We offer services like filling out victim compensation forms and assistance with other victims' rights forms to individuals to be filing those with the government,” said Renée Williams, the group's CEO. "We help explain those forms to individuals, so anything that is considered a supportive service, even if it's just emotional support, that's what we do, and that is what is going away.”
The DOJ said the funds are being terminated because they no longer align with the department’s priorities. The center also told three sites establishing peer-support programs in Raleigh and Columbia that their funding has ended. The National Center for Victims of Crime has over 40 staff members, some of whom have been notified that they will be laid off.
“We're a very close-knit staff in victim services; many people have been victims themselves, so this is absolute devastation,” Williams said.
Williams says the group is seeking other funds to keep their programs running.
