INDIANAPOLIS — Federal funds to help survivors of sexual violence in Indiana will soon face a severe cut according to the Indiana Coalition to End Sexual Assault & Human Trafficking.
Earlier this week, ICESAHT President and CEO Beth White announced it would suspend its efforts to fight human trafficking starting next year due to a lack of dollars.
”It’s, as I said, a very disappointing realization that there are not sufficient resources,” White said.
White said in two years federal grant dollars allocated for Indiana through the Victims of Crime Act will be slashed by roughly 80%.
”Instead of $66 million it will be $15 million,” White said. “We’re saying that we’re coming up to a cliff, and we’re going to fall off that cliff.”
In 2023 alone, 200 Indiana organizations that rely on these dollars helped a combined 200,000 Hoosiers, according to White.
”Think about child advocacy centers who work with child abuse and neglect victims, think about prosecutor’s offices, police departments, and victims services,” White said.
”They recognize that these critical dollars are going, might have the chance of going away,” State Rep. Victoria Garcia Wilburn (D-Fishers) said.
State Rep. Garcia Wilburn said she plans to meet with several providers over the next few weeks who are seeking solutions.
”I believe that bipartisanly we can create something that is sufficient,” State Rep. Garcia Wilburn said.
Meanwhile, White said she’s working with many of these groups to ask the state for at least $12 million next budget session, but recognizes the state’s Medicaid shortfall could put that request in jeopardy.
”That will fill, not the whole gap, but enough of the gap that we believe services can continue,” White said. ”We know it’s a struggling budget environment in Indiana…we also know that victims of crime need services.”
