In this week’s Atlanticville, you’ll read two stories about 180, Turning Lives Around (formerly the Women’s Center of Monmouth County).
The Hazlet-based nonprofit is the lone county agency that offers comprehensive services to domestic violence and sexual assault victims.
One story is about individuals who were honored at the recent 26th annual awards dinner honoring community partners. The other is about the dire straits the agency will be in if more state funding is cut.
While the one talks of all the agency has accomplished through its community partners, the other talks about the vital programs that could be lost if the state fails to provide adequate funding in its 2002-03 budget.
According to 180 Executive Director Anna Diaz-White, the agency is "looking at $253,000 just vanishing." The agency has already been told it would lose $100,000, which it cannot make up through fund raising, according to Diaz-White.
That funding shortfall has resulted in the elimination of two rape-care programs. One of the programs taught students how to protect themselves and the other provided sensitivity training to police officers who deal with drug-related sexual assault victims.
The deeper cut could result in the loss of the award-winning Amanda’s Easel art therapy program, toll-free hot lines and closure of a Neptune outreach office.
There is no disputing the state’s budget shortfall, and there’s no way the gap can be closed without cutting some spending. However, making an organization like 180 an early target of those cuts is not appropriate.
The state will still be spending billions of dollars in its next fiscal year, and some of that will certainly be for programs of dubious value at best.
It strains credibility to assert that financing something like a sports stadium should be a higher priority than crisis intervention for victims of domestic violence and sexual assault and working to prevent such crisis from developing.
The planned cuts are not written in stone, and the state budget won’t likely be approved for at least a month. Legislators and the governor need to hear from their constituents about what our priorities are and should be.
Now is the time to take the opportunity to contact them to let them know this funding is vital and how important the 180 center is to our community.