Susan Morée speaks with MaryEllen Garcia, executive director of NMCAD about the organizations funding needs and the prevalence of domestic violence in the state. Here's a transcript of their conversation:
Susan Morée:
Mary Ellen, there is stagnant funding for domestic violence, as I understand it, but an increased need in New Mexico. Can you talk about what that has meant on the ground?
MaryEllen Garcia:
Oh, absolutely. We're incredibly fortunate here in New Mexico. We have a robust network of domestic and intimate partner violence services across New Mexico. We have about 32 sites, agencies who provide crisis intervention, crisis stabilization for those who are experiencing domestic and intimate partner violence. Very specialized work with children, very specialized work with those who cause harm. We have sheltering across the state. We have a network of our indigenous relatives who have providers across the state. And what we're seeing in the reporting, so we look at the providers who are reporting their statistics to Children, Youth and Families, who is the primary state administering agency for intimate partner violence funding in New Mexico. And what we're seeing between 2021 and 2024, we're seeing an increase in shelter nights being reported at about 44.7%. We're seeing crisis calls being reported to the CYFD report at a rate of 53%. We're seeing alternative shelter nights, meaning the shelter may be full, so we're placing individuals in hotels or other ways in which to secure their safety at about 52.7%. So we're seeing increases in the reporting to our funding sources of services being provided, which means, which equates to an increase in number of survivors being served. However, on the state side, we have not seen an increase in funding in well over five years. We've actually seen a decrease as we've lost the domestic violence offender treatment fund when we lost fines, fees, and forfeitures several years ago.
Susan Morée:
Is that federal dollars or state dollars?
MaryEllen Garcia:
That's the state dollars. Right now, I'm specifically talking just about our state dollars. We have not yet felt the second decrease in funding for VOCA Victim Assistance Funding. Our Domestic Violence Services received an 18%, almost 20% cut several fiscal years ago. And the Crime Victims Reparation Commission has been able to stave off any additional cuts. in the VOCA victim assistance money for domestic violence and other victims of violent crime. But what that's meant is our providers have had stagnant funds for many years with a massive increase in need. And most importantly, an increase in need in the complexity of what survivors are needing to feel safe and to seek safety.
Susan Morée:
One in three women and one in four men in New Mexico experience domestic violence annually. That seems really staggering. Can you talk about how providers are handling this situation on the ground?
MaryEllen Garcia:
So it's absolutely staggering. I think, you know, I often say that intimate partner violence is an epidemic that we do not discuss. It's one of those topics that when you start talking about it, you automatically feel people becoming uncomfortable. But what I want to normalize is This, when you look at the numbers, one in three, one in four men and women, and that doesn't address the higher increases in our indigenous communities, the higher increases in our LGBTQI, two-spirit communities, our immigrant communities, our undocumented communities, those rates are even higher. And what our providers are doing is what they always do. answering the crisis call, ensuring that survivors' voices are being heard, that we're centering the work around what survivors are asking for. And they're asking for safety, how to do safety plans, how to talk about how to be safe within their homes, how to create safety for their children, how to stop the intergenerational violence that they're experiencing within their homes. And so our providers are meeting survivors where they're at - offering shelter, offering crisis intervention, offering the services, the case management that they need to connect to cash assistance or emergency assistance for a few nights, or, you know, children who need a new backpack, right? Our service providers are needing survivors where they're at. But one of the issues that we're running into is because of the stagnancy of funds, we've always said, well, we'll just keep doing it. We'll just keep doing it. And that's a disservice, right? That's a disservice to the professionals who are providing the work, who are incredibly overwhelmed. And that's a disservice to survivors because we are not able to fully meet their needs because we're trying to spread it out as far as we can.
Susan Morée:
That sounds like a situation for burnout for the professionals trying to meet those needs.
MaryEllen Garcia:
Oh, absolutely. The amount of turnover that we experience is incredibly high because, you know, we're often told, don't talk about increasing salaries because it's not a palatable conversation to the legislature. Well, the reality is, is we have advocates with professional degrees who are doing work that requires an immense amount of nuance and expertise. And we pay them less than you can make at Walmart or Target or a local fast food chain. And they're still paying off student loans, right, to have these professional degrees in social work or working towards being licensed clinicians or a background in criminology. And so it's a high level of turnover. And unfortunately, because we haven't seen increases in funding, we have a lot of providers who can't offer benefits packages. I've been in this work for 30 years. In the nonprofit side of my work, I have no retirement package. We have no retirement packages, right? So we have people who are doing the work, who will never be able to retire, and who aren't making salaries that are cost of living. And so burnout is high. And know you come into this work for varying reasonswe come into this work through lived experience we come into this work um as children who've witnessed abuse um there's a lot of expertise that's brought into this work and we're not able to pay people commiserate to the experience and expertise that they offer and that's an unfortunate and really difficult conversation because we have it all the time and yet you hear those who are in positions of authority and power to create appropriations who deeply empathize, yet when it comes to the time to offer additional funding and recognize that giving to social services, such as domestic and sexual violence, decreases the burden on all of the other systems and recognizing the power of that. And we're not seeing those appropriations.
Susan Morée:
New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence is asking the state legislature for $5 million this year. What would the organization do with that money if the state fully appropriates it?
MaryEllen Garcia:
So if the state fully appropriates it, we would ask that $4 million of that go directly to the network of 32 intimate partner violence providers across the state. so that they can ensure shelter and housing navigation, legal advocacy, in addition to half a million of that, to developing a statewide domestic violence hotline. We're one of very few states that does not have a dedicated domestic violence statewide hotline. And so, four million of that would go to expanding and stabilizing our core services and establishing that statewide hotline. And then we would request that 500,000 of that go towards expansion of accountability for those who cause harm. We have a robust network of providers who do work with those through courts and corrections and probation and parole who cause harm. In addition to half a million dollars going towards strengthening the standards of our providers, delivering coalition level training and technical assistance so that our providers and advocates who are in the field can continue to offer those best practices. So we're looking at, you know, developing that hotline, ensuring that over 5,000 additional advocacy encounters would happen statewide.
Susan Morée:
We've talked about the people who work in the field. We've talked a little bit about survivors. What about children who are witnessing these domestic violence incidences or themselves are experiencing domestic violence? Can you talk about that?
MaryEllen Garcia:
Absolutely. So when I talk about survivors, children to me are always included. But I also have to remember I need to explicitly state that. because in my professional opinion, every child who has witnessed intimate partner violence is a survivor of not only witnessing it, but of child abuse themselves. And we have a Children's Capacity Program in New Mexico that just celebrated its 10th anniversary. Again, it's not seen increases in funding in over five years in which we have advocates who are specifically trained to work with in my family, we call them all tiny humans, the children, the tiny humans of all ages, right? At their level, right? So very specific addressing the adverse childhood experiences. We know when a child has one human in their life who can sit with them and believe them and support them, that can positively impact the negative experiences that they've had. And so we work really diligently to ensure that our providers across the state have advocates who are specifically there for the children who come into those services. And it's not mom or dad, it's not the survivor's advocate, it's the child's advocate. And it's the person who sits with that child and walks them through their lens, right? Their experiences, and helps them work through something that shouldn't be normal, right? A lot of the children that we work with, violence in their home is normal; and they recognize it as normal because they know nothing different. And so our advocates are across the state. We have some phenomenal children's advocates who've been doing this work for a long time. We have programs who have dogs who come in and work with the kids. And so we're definitely seeing a lot of those kids now, and have been doing this for such a long time, are actually in the movement themselves, right? They've become adults, they've gone to school, they've obtained those professional degrees. And they're coming back in and saying, I'm going to work at this shelter because I remember what it was like when my mom sought help and I stayed here and how it changed me. And so, we're able to see those things.
Susan Morée:
New Mexico is a very rural state. Can you talk about how that impacts the network of How do I say this?
MaryEllen Garcia:
The network of services, the complexities, right? I mean, we say rural, but really what I want to normalize is we're one of four remaining frontier states. You know, our population is between, I think it's one person for every 17 square miles or some, there's some statistic where you think about it and you're like, oh my gosh, we are a frontier state. We have providers who serve areas that that far exceed 20,000 square miles, right? And so we're asking, right, we're asking survivors in some of the hardest moments of their lives to flee their homes without a vehicle and drive over 100 miles to get to a shelter, right? And so the complexities of being such a frontier rural community, you know, I say community, but New Mexico is the fourth largest state, but the smallest town in the entire country, right? But you think about going from Clayton to the closest shelter, that's a significant drive, right? And there are barriers. And when we talk about barriers, you know, in some other states around the country, they talk about barriers. Oh, you know, it's access to public transportation. We talk about barriers. We have communities that have limited access to water, limited access to electricity, right? No access to internet, right? And we want to modernize to create points of accessibility through technology. But we have parts of our state that don't even have access to broadband or to the internet. And so being a frontier state, is beautiful, but it also massively increases the complexities of the delivery of services and creating safety for survivors.
Susan Morée:
The New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence is asking for $5 million, but I have a feeling that you could actually use even a lot more money than that. Is that correct?
MaryEllen Garcia:
Absolutely. The reality is for us to be stable and stabilize core services and bring salaries up to where they should be based upon an assessment, we're anywhere between 12 to $15 million in need.
Susan Morée:
Wow, that's a lot of, that's a lot of need.
MaryEllen Garcia:
That's a lot of, that's an immense amount of need.
Susan Morée:
Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Mary Ellen, for talking to me.
MaryEllen Garcia:
Absolutely. You have a great day.
You can learn more about the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence right here.
