State crime victims’ legal funds are running out

Federal funding for organizations helping victims of crime is quickly running out and advocates want the state to step in with millions of dollars.

The federal Victims of Crime Act, or VOCA, fund is the largest funding source for programs in California aimed at helping victims.

In 2018, $396 million was distributed through various grants aimed at crime victim programs. But the current award in 2021 to California is projected to be $125 million, according to data from the National Association of VOCA Assistance Administrators.

Advocates have asked the state government to cover some of the projected losses. In a budget fact sheet, a coalition of legal aid organizations asked for $315 million in one-time funding to spend over three years.

The money could come in handy. According to the document, the Governor’s Office of Emergency Services, which distributes grants from the fund, would have to slash VOCA-supported programs by 25% in 2022 and 2023. The office declined to comment.

Krista Niemczyk, public policy director at California Partnership to End Domestic Violence, said that VOCA funds help their partner organizations provide shelter and longer term housing for victims of domestic violence. It also provides legal services.

“Most survivors go through our court system and some are unrepresented without legal support since many are unable to afford attorneys,” Niemczyk said. “VOCA funds grants to provide legal systems specifically for crime survivors. And many of the grantees are using those dollars to support domestic violence survivors in navigating our court system.”

VOCA also funds other services to victims of sexual assault, child abuse, human trafficking and LGBTQ programs, among others.

“VOCA touches everything that is happening in terms of victim services, and any cuts to those dollars will be devastating,” Niemczyk said.

The fund receives its money from criminal fines from federal convictions. The decline in funding is not due to a decrease in crime but rather a change in prosecutorial strategies. According to Niemczyk, there are more civil than criminal prosecutions, leading to different types of settlements that do not fall into the fund.

“There’s bipartisan legislation to try to fix that,” Niemczyk said, “so that the sort of structure of what comes into the fund is representative of how these cases are playing out right now, which was always the intent.”

Funding has been on a steady decline since 2018. However, since the California Office of Emergency Services used previous funding to create a buffer to avoid drastic cuts to programs, the decline has not been felt. But the ability to not see millions of dollars being cut is quickly waning, according to Niemczyk.

The deadline to pass the budget is June 15.

“The reason why we’re really calling on the state to act in this year’s budget is that planning for what those grant amounts will be in 2022 and 2023 will happen during this next year,” Niemczyk said.

The decline in VOCA funding comes as money going to legal nonprofits from the Interest on Lawyers’ Trust Account program, or IOLTA, has also decreased.

IOLTA contributed $55.6 million in legal services funding for 2020, which was a record high. It represented a 400% increase in IOLTA funds compared to three years ago. Last year, IOLTA revenue dipped to $22.4 million after interest rates dropped in March at the beginning of the pandemic, according to the State Bar’s 2021 preliminary budget.

The situation is especially dire given that eviction moratoriums are set to expire and there was an increase of domestic violence and sexual abuse during the pandemic, said Lorin M. Kline, directing attorney at the Legal Aid Association of California.

“It’s scary,” Kline said.

Kline pointed out that at the same time the federal government is pumping in money to California in pandemic relief, California has not dedicated any of it to legal aid.

“It’s a weird time when there’s some federal funding cuts, and then also huge amounts of federal funding coming into California that we have not yet been able to get the state to allocate for legal aid, but we’re working on it,” she said.

There have been efforts in the Legislature to address some of the issues. A bill that recently passed the state Judiciary Committee, AB 1487, would create a Homelessness Prevention Fund and fund attorneys to help tenants facing wrongful evictions. The bill is asking for $200 million from the state budget.