• Services
• Vacancies
• Contact
• Training
• Library
• Articles
• Donations
• Info Links

Newsletter

Subscribe

Your Email:(required)

Full Name:(not required)

APRIL IS SEXUAL ASSAULT AWARENESS MONTH AND CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION MONTH!!

READ ABOUT THE 'LIGHT UP THE NIGHT' CEROMONY HELD RECENTLY IN CONRAD!

 

Advocacy Training Click here!!

This web site contains information for all aspects of domestic violence, child abuse, sexual assault, elder abuse, stalking, and many other areas and topics relating to different areas of abuse

APRIL 2012 ISSUE OF THE DOVE

 

Even with large drop in funding, HLHAS continues to help victims

By briana wipf

Shelby Promoter Editor

–––––––––––––––––––––––Photo by Briana Wipf

Hi-Line’s Help for Abused Spouses Director Connie Huffman stands with quilts donated to the organization in her Conrad office. HLHAS depends on grants and donations to provide services to victims of domestic violence.

 

Last fall, Hi-Line’s Help for Abused Spouses director Connie Huffman was notified HLHAS would not receive a federal rural domestic violence and sexual assault grant.

HLHAS first received the  multi-year grant, funded through the federal Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), in 2002. 

Most recently, the organization received $666,000 over the course of five years and two funding cycles.

“It provided for a lot of direct services for victims and a lot of travel for advocates because we cover such a huge area,” said Huffman.

HLHAS provides services to victims of domestic abuse in Glacier, Toole, Pondera, Teton, Liberty and Chouteau counties, an area of 14,207 square miles, said Huffman. She said the three victim’s advocates in the organization travel about 30,000 miles each year.

“It really limited travel last fall,” said Huffman, who has worked with the program for 30 years and has been executive director since 1990.

Advocates still travel to help victims, but other services have been cut back.

“If somebody is in trouble, we’re going to go to them,” Huffman said.

One of those people, whom we will identify only as Golden Triangle Survivor, credits HLHAS with helping her leave her abuser and get her back on her feet.

“I had nothing except the clothes on my back,” Survivor recalled. “They helped me pay my first month’s rent. They took me grocery shopping. They took me to my appointments, helped furnish my apartment with dishes and bedding and whatever else I needed.”

Survivor said she depended on HLHAS to get her to and from appointments, once providing her with transportation to an appointment 150 miles away, “to help me do what I needed to get back on my feet.”

This service was possible because of the federal grant.

Huffman had planned to reapply for the grant this spring, but she learned recently that only programs that were currently in receipt of the grant were eligible to reapply.

“That devastated us,” she said.

While VAWA is yet to be reauthorized by Congress, $458.47 million has been set aside to fund the act when it is reauthorized.

Still, funding for VAWA, like other federal programs, is down slightly. The program was funded $482.62 million in 2011 and $482.12 in 2010.

Allison Price, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice, said the Office of Violence Against Women may reconsider the requirements for the rural domestic violence and sexual assault grant. “With limited funding, we have to make difficult choices; in tough economic times, these choices are even more difficult,” said Price of the decision to change the grant’s requirements. “The Office of Violence Against Women will revisit grant decisions next year.”

Huffman said HLHAS will continue to apply for grants, but “we’re looking at smaller grants, Department of Health and Human Services grants, private foundation grants. But it still doesn’t provide all the direct services.”

“The biggest part of what we can’t do anymore is financial help,” explained Huffman. She said HLHAS had been able to purchase bus or train tickets for victims, help them relocate and help with utilities, rent and medication costs.

“Those are the things that really have been completely shut down,” she said.

Huffman said her staff will no longer be able to travel to counties to network and offer training or engage in public awareness work.

But she said HLHAS is still able to help victims navigate the court system. “We do a lot of legal advocacy and work with the Department of Family Services,” she said.

Ninth District Court Judge Laurie McKinnon called the assistance HLHAS provides to victims “an integral, necessary part of the process.”

She said victims often have limited resources and are unable to hire attorneys. HLHAS advocates, including Huffman, help with that.

“Victims need someone who knows the system and can help navigate it,” she continued. Advocates provide not only legal but also emotional support to victims.

McKinnon explained legal resources in the state are stretched thin. “We’re crunched,” she said. “I wish we had these types of resources not just for victims of spousal abuse but for anyone in the court system.”

Law enforcement and HLHAS often work together to help victims, Huffman said. Survivor explained she learned about the organization from a local police officer when her abuser began harassing her.

“It wasn’t hard for me to seek them out at all once I was given their information,” she said.

“At first it was scary because I had never reached out like this before,” she continued. “But once I called and explained my situation and finally met my advocate, it wasn’t so bad.”

Survivor credits HLHAS with getting her away from her abuser. “I have thought a lot about what if HLHAS wasn’t there, where would I be?” she said. “Yes, I would still be with him.”

There is more of a need for the organization now than ever before. “Last summer, it was unreal,” said Huffman. “It was so busy. We had 70-some new primary victims over that quarter.”

Huffman said usually the summer quarter brings an average of 25 to 30 victims.

“The last couple years, we’ve had between 200 and 250 victims, and before that it was like 190 or 180,” she continued.

Huffman believes more people are reaching out for help than in years past. The organization’s 24-hour crisis line and ability to network with other groups has helped locate victims too, she said. 

Statistics from the Montana Board of Crime Control do not present a complete picture of what HLHAS experiences, Huffman added. “We get a lot more calls than law enforcement… Victims come to us instead of going to law enforcement for whatever reason,” she explained.

“We are the only outreach program around,” Huffman said. “So without our program, the victims are going to be really falling through the cracks even with the justice system.”

But Huffman said the program is “still plugging along. Everything is just a smaller scale now.”

HLHAS will begin an online volunteer training program this month. Huffman said many prospective volunteers were not able to come to Conrad two weekends in a row for training. This way, volunteers can do most of their training online, then come to Conrad to finish training.

“We’re excited about the new way we’re going to be doing this,” she said.

Huffman also applauded local organizations that donate to HLHAS.

“They send us monetary donations, or they bring in clothes, or call and ask, ‘What do you need?’” she said.

“Our communities are very generous and we do so appreciate the person who stops by and hands us a check for $25. It’s great,” she continued.

“There are so many abused women and children, and even men, who don’t know there are people out there like HLHAS,” said Survivor. “For years I didn’t know they existed, or I would have left a long time ago.”

That HLHAS will no longer be eligible for the federal grant does not put the organization’s existence in jeopardy. “There will be a big difference in…the services we provide,” Huffman said. “We are very limited because of the loss of funding.”

Those services are vital to hundreds of people in the Golden Triangle area.

“I am finally free,” Survivor said. “Because HLHAS were my angels at that moment I needed them, I’m alive and can finally be me. And it sure is a beautiful and wonderful feeling to be free.”

To contact HLHAS, call 278-3342 or visit their new website, www.hlhas.shutterfly-.com. The crisis line number is 1-800-219-7336.

 

 

 

 

"This website is dedicated to every child; may we have the power, courage, faith and perseverance to give them a world free of abuse, neglect and fear.  May they only know love, happiness, laughter, peace and a life free of violence."