Susan Morée speaks with MaryEllen Garcia, executive director of the New Mexico Coalition Against Domestic Violence, about what's next after the New Mexico Legislature chose not to provide the coalition with additional funding despite significant need. Here's a transcript of their conversation:
Susan Morée:
So MaryEllen, you talked to me about a month or so ago about asking the legislature for $5 million. And you said at the time that really to stabilize core services and bring salaries up to where they really needed to be in domestic violence shelters around New Mexico, that you really needed something more like $12 to $15 million. Can you tell me what happened when you went to the legislature in January and asked for $5 million?
MaryEllen Garcia:
So our providers across the state spent January and have actually spent the last year, really, working to make relationships and build relationships with legislators in Santa Fe. And, you know, we'd like to honor and say that here in New Mexico, we did lead into our values this legislative session by strengthening some of the protections for immigrant survivors, which many of our domestic violence survivors are. And that was a moral and a practical victory for our state. But at the same time, many, many truths can be true. It's been more than six years. So, we're entering six years of domestic violence providers across New Mexico, which is 32 locations across New Mexico who provide services, have not received a meaningful recurring increase in state funding. But as we talked about over a month ago, in those six years, costs have risen dramatically. The cost of housing, the cost of insurance, the cost of staffing and utilities have all increased. The complexity of survivors reaching out for services has increased, but funding has not. And I know that a few communities received that one-time GRO appropriation. And we're all grateful for every dollar that supports survivors. But one-time funding has proven to be incredibly difficult because it does not stabilize the workforce. It does not sustain shelter beds. It does not sustain the crisis hotlines or the crisis response. And really, when we're talking about safety in our communities, providers cannot build long-term safety with temporary, one-time funding. And so right now, our domestic violence providers are continuing to operate with uncertainty.
Susan Morée:
Just to be clear for listeners who are not familiar with the technical language of the legislature, GRO funding is money that individual legislators put towards projects in their own districts that they want to support. You've said before that there's increased need, more people coming to shelters in New Mexico needing help and resources. Can you talk about that a little bit more now? And what does the future look like for you all with this increased need and no additional funding?
MaryEllen Garcia:
So we know from the reports that our providers are submitting to the Children, Youth, and Families Department, who is the funding agency for the state of New Mexico, that they're seeing an increased need for services. Between 2021 and 2024, crisis calls increased by 53%. Shelter nights increased by nearly 45%. Children who are exposed to intimate partner violence increased by 74%. Yet, the service providers, again, have not seen a meaningful increase in over six years. And we know, particularly over the last few weeks and several months, the deep and rippling impacts of domestic violence across our state. We know that domestic violence does not discriminate. It's impacting our rural and our frontier, our Indigenous, BIPOC communities, our LGBTQIA Two-Spirit communities. And when it happens, when domestic violence is happening, it's not just affecting one particular family. It's impacting our workplaces, our schools, and our hospitals. The rippling impacts are profound and intergenerational. But I do want to highlight, if we can, that we did have a powerful win through state Senator Angel Charlie with the Senate Memorial to help us spend the next few months really looking at what it would mean for the state to meaningfully fund domestic violence.
Susan Morée:
Okay, was that a memorial?
MaryEllen Garcia:
Yes, it was a memorial state Senator Charlie was able to champion. And, you know, at its root, it's about the state of New Mexico saying, ‘we believe in the safety of survivors.’ We believe that public safety, that domestic violence is a public safety and a public health crisis, and that survivors in New Mexico deserve for funding to address the complexity and the needs of survivors. And so the memorial is going to ask that the Legislative Finance Commission take some time to meaningfully look at how the funding is being allocated and spent in New Mexico, both at the state and federal level through the Children, Youth and Families Department, and to look at those dwindling flat and reduced funding that our providers have been experiencing and to make a recommendation as to what it would look like to adequately fund providers across the state. It was a really clear way to say that as a state, we value survivor safety, and it's important that we look at what that would look like. It's unfortunate that we left the legislative session without additional funding, but we do take this as a win to be able to say, okay, let's really look at how the instability of our providers contradicts our values as New Mexicans.
Susan Morée:
When we talked before, you talked a bit about people who work in shelters experiencing burnout, not getting paid enough money, high turnover rate. Not having enough money leads to all kinds of problems, which has a ripple effect. What happens now without the additional funding for those workers? How do you go back and say to them, ‘well, sorry, you know, we can't give you a raise?’
MaryEllen Garcia:
Well, unfortunately, that is something our providers and their staff have heard for the past several years. So those who come to this work don't view it as a job. It's a movement. And we all come to this work for our own reasons. And we stay in this work for as long as we do because we believe that we can impact change. And so, unfortunately, as a state, we did not say that we value that expertise and experience. And, unfortunately, our executive directors across the state are going to, once again, have to think about what does it look like to honor the staff that are doing the work. And I've talked to executive directors, I talked to one a couple of days ago who said, ‘I'm not filling vacant positions so that I could give a tiny, minuscule raise,’ so that folks are recognized and feel that we recognize how important they are and we value who they are. But what that means is fewer staff are responding to increased calls. What that means is the time available to dedicate, to sit with a survivor and really be present is diminished, right? And that doesn't mean that providers aren't doing amazing work. What it means is they're having to triage their time. And that's challenging and it's really unfortunate. It's unfortunate to see that our programs are operating under strain and costs are increasing. So not only are costs increasing, health insurance is increasing, utilities are increasing. And so providers are having to look at where can we cut costs. One of our longtime executive directors up in the Northwest region of the state said, when funding becomes flat or decreased, ‘I have to make a value judgment on what do I do. I decrease administrative staff and I take on that burden.’ And so a lot of programs are operating not at capacity with true operational staff to make sure that everything is functioning. And executive leaders are taking on a huge piece of that burden to ensure that the staff who are handling incredibly complex survivor trauma can have a tiny, minuscule raise or not feel the burden of a funding cut.
Susan Morée:
There's been a lot of talk right now about Jeffrey Epstein and holding folks accountable who were involved in his crimes. Does it feel a little bit ironic to you that the legislature chose not to increase funding at all for domestic violence shelters, especially since a lot of times young women who wind up getting caught up in that kind of criminal activity, it starts in the home, right? They experience some sort of domestic violence or sexual assault or some kind of abuse in the home, and it makes them more vulnerable to people like Jeffrey Epstein.
MaryEllen Garcia:
Well, I have to say that the work of the New Mexico Coalition of Sexual Assault Programs, this legislative session was powerful. The establishment of the Truth Commission was an amazing historic step forward for survivors of sexual violence and human trafficking in New Mexico. And what that signaled to us is that as New Mexicans, we are finally willing to truly confront harm in an honest, clear, and survivor-centered way, and really looking at survivor voices and shaping the systems that have failed them. And so, as I said before, multiple things can be true at the same time. Sexual violence in New Mexico is also underfunded. They were able to receive an increase in appropriation this year. And the sexual violence programs were able to really advocate for this truth commission. And that is powerful because it is so incredibly needed. What can also be true at the same time is that intimate partner and domestic violence was not included in increased appropriations. And what that tells me is we still have a lot of work to do. We still have a lot of work to do for those who are in positions of power to recognize that intimate partner violence also needs to be meaningfully and adequately funded. And that we as a state center survivor voice and survivor safety and are going to you know, appropriate those dollars. And so I would never ever want to take away from the powerful work that happened with sexual violence or the immigration, the protections for immigration, immigrant survivors and immigrants across New Mexico was powerful this legislative session. What is also true is, as a state, we did not invest once again in domestic violence. And yet we as a state are relying on our community-based providers to always be there. And they are. And that's really challenging because they will continue to show up. And it is unfortunate that we don't invest in that.
Susan Morée:
All right. Thank you so much, MaryEllen. I really appreciate your taking the time to talk to me.
MaryEllen Garcia:
Absolutely, I appreciate you as well.
