How a Domestic-Violence Group Copes With Unreliable Support From the State

In a bid to help close a gaping state budget hole, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last summer vetoed $16.3-million that state legislators had approved for domestic-violence shelters.

When efforts to restore the money foundered, Beth Hassett, executive director of Weave, a group in Sacramento that provides services to victims of domestic violence and sexual assault, concluded she had no choice but to dismantle her three-person legal department.

On a Monday in October, she laid off a lawyer and two advocates. The following Thursday, the Legislature passed emergency legislation to keep the domestic-violence money in the budget for one more year. Ms. Hassett scrambled to rehire the staff members.

There was just one problem: The lawyer had already found another job.

Cuts and Uncertainty

Welcome to the world of nonprofit budgeting, California style.

And when it comes to domestic-violence money, the roller-coaster ride is far from over. The $16.3-million for this fiscal year, a 20-percent cut from last year, came in the form of a loan from gasoline taxes that are set aside to pay for alternative energy technologies—not exactly a permanent solution.

With California facing a budget shortfall of close to $19-billion over the next 16 months—despite already slashing spending on health and social services, prisons, schools, universities, state parks, and more—Ms. Hassett is not optimistic the money will return.

Nonprofit leaders sometimes say, “If only legislators knew how important what we do is,” Ms. Hassett says. “I’ve more than once said, Everyone knows, everyone understands. There just isn’t any money.”

Budget cuts and uncertainty have become a way of life for groups like Weave (Women Escaping a Violent Environment) as California tries to pull itself out of a deep recession that has starved government coffers of tax revenues.

Ms. Hassett sees the results on a daily basis. When she became Weave’s executive director in 2006, her budget was $3.8-million and she led more than 70 staff members. Today, those numbers are $2.9-million and 49.

About half of Weave’s budget comes from the state and Sacramento County—and the county, hit by declining state aid and sales and property taxes, has also had to cut spending to close a budget gap.

Last year Weave got more than $700,000 in county money for providing domestic-violence and sexual-assault services.

This year, it got less than $270,000—and most of that came from money the county was required to spend under a state law that orders counties to set aside $23 from every marriage-license fee it receives for domestic-violence shelters.

Despite its shrinking budget, at least Weave has kept its doors open.

After Governor Schwarzenegger vetoed the domestic-violence money last summer, six shelters in the state had to close until the money was restored, and one was unable to reopen, according to the California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, a coalition of groups and individuals.

Ms. Hassett says some organizations have been hit harder because they rely on government money for up to 90 percent of their revenue. Weave has worked to raise private money, bringing in about $800,000 last year.

However, recession-weary donors are also holding back, so the group has set a lower fund-raising target of $775,000 this year—and Ms. Hassett says even that is a “stretch goal.”

Future Fallout

To make ends meet, Weave has had to redefine how it measures success. Because it is the only group of its kind in Sacramento County, staff members used to feel obligated to try to “do everything for everybody,” Ms. Hassett says. No longer.

Weave has eliminated an array of individual and group counseling services and often has only one crisis line open instead of three.

It now devotes the bulk of its work to its new shelter, or safe house, which opened in July. That is a priority because money that is available from the marriage-license fees and certain state funds can go only to groups that operate shelters.

The building houses 40 to 45 women and children who can stay up to 60 days if domestic violence is their primary problem and the women are willing to enter an intensive counseling and therapy program.

The shelter is almost always full, so Weave sometimes has to turn people away, trying to find spots for them elsewhere when possible, Ms. Hassett says.

She worries about all the people who are falling through the cracks. “What we’re missing are all those people who don’t need shelter, aren’t in immediate danger, but are contemplating leaving a violent relationship or have left and need support.”

Furthermore, the bad economy is forcing some people to stay in abusive relationships because they cannot afford to leave.

“Unfortunately, we’re going to see it in a couple of years when people start looking at the homicide rates,” she says. “This is festering right now.”

Seeking Efficiency

Ms. Hassett sees one growth area for Weave—providing counseling services for a fee. Last year, it began to offer such services to clients on a sliding scale, following an earlier move to offer them to people who qualified for money under the state’s victims-compensation fund, and so far that part of the organization is running a profit.

While times are tough for California’s nonprofit groups, Ms. Hassett is hoping that the budget traumas will prompt them to coordinate more with each other and eliminate duplication—something she says state officials have encouraged. She cites the array of hotlines that are available to people in crisis—suicide-prevention lines, domestic-violence lines, the United Way’s 2-1-1 referral service.

“I do not understand why we don’t do a better job of collapsing some of that into one service,” she says.

Ms. Hassett thinks it might take a “catastrophe” to prompt real change, however. “Who’s going to convene the conversations?” she says. “Everyone has a dog in this fight.”