New York state helped a Bronx rape crisis program grow \u2014 another arm of the state could force it to shrink.<\/p>\n
The Kingsbridge Heights Community Center said its primary Office of Victim Services, or OVS, grant was eliminated for the next funding cycle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were both kind of in shock, and then we had to jump into motion from there,\u201d Sadie Mahoney, the chief program officer, said.<\/p>\n
The center served more than 500 people last year. The cut landed just as Kingsbridge was expanding after a separate state grant increased funding for its work with sexual assault survivors.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s crazy-making because if you increase staff and you increase capacity in one breath and have to let go staff in the next breath, then we\u2019re not really taking two steps forward,\u201d Mahoney said.<\/p>\n
The Alliance Against Sexual Violence said the whiplash is being felt across the city, with rape crisis programs reporting about $2.5 million in lost funding.<\/p>\n
Emily Miles, the executive director, said the Bronx can least afford to lose capacity.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe see the highest rates of sexual violence per capita in the Bronx, and yet we also see the least access to rape crisis centers there,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
According to NYPD data, reported rapes citywide are up 5.1% so far this year when compared to the same time last year.<\/p>\n
OVS said the larger picture is a funding pool overwhelmed by demand. Applicants sought nearly $500 million more than was available.<\/p>\n
The agency said it\u2019s still awarded a record year, but under the competitive process previously funded programs were not guaranteed another award.<\/p>\n
\u201cUnfortunately, if we don\u2019t see a fix to this funding issue, we will absolutely be seeing several programs close their doors,\u201d Miles said.<\/p>\n
Mahoney said she hopes the governor steps in before Oct. 1, when tentative funding decisions could start changing what survivors can actually access.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel like this is a problem that we can work on together as a community,\u201d Mahoney said.<\/p>\n
The awards are still tentative, pending review by the state comptroller\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
There are at least 14 organizations in the city that have been denied or had their funding cut plan to appeal the decision. They\u2019re also calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul to step in and help fill their budget gaps.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York state helped a Bronx rape crisis program grow \u2014 another arm of the state could force…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323734,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[387,25,128,388,9,24,12,63,308,129,131,130,27,200],"class_list":["post-323733","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-app-public-safety","tag-app-top-stories","tag-bronx","tag-louis-finley","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-nyc","tag-public-safety","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news","tag-top-stories","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323733","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323733\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}