By Maddy Futter
Update
H.H. Dow HS
1st Place
Division 3, News Writing
News Story
In President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office, he has been given the task of creating the federal budget blueprint for 2017. Trump has stuck by his rhetoric- cutting unnecessary spending and increasing the size of the military. In the plan for the next economic year, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) would receive $68 billion, a reduction of 17.9 percent from 2016. Many of the programs funded by the HHS give support and service to those in need, including the shelter houses.
Shelter houses are a place of advocacy for those who experience domestic violence or sexual assault. Places and services like these could be forced to reduce their number of staff members. The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA), which is funded through annual appropriations for both the Department of Justice and the HHS, provides 42 percent of the Shelterhouse of Midland’s annual budget. Cuts to this budget have the potential to change how the Shelterhouse performs services. Those funds pay approximately four staff salaries at the Midland Shelterhouse.
“Our organization is such that our people are our program,” Executive Director of the Midland Shelterhouse Janine Ouderkirk said. “If we don’t have people on staff, we can’t provide service. If we lose 42 percent of our funding that will be a hard hit. Not only for our shelter house but for our community as well because it means we will have fewer people to serve all the victims of domestic and sexual violence. It will definitely hurt us a lot.”
The Shelterhouse provides services such as counseling from a therapist, children’s therapy, and a court liaison. They also have staff members that are advocates, nurses, and crisis line workers who work every day of the year to give help to those in need.
“The jobs may vary but bottom line we are going to do whatever we can to make sure that the person who is calling is safe, or the person sitting in front of us is safe,” Ouderkirk said. “Working to make sure their life can be healed. Bottom line, we offer hope, healing, and empowerment.”
The Michigan Domestic and Sexual Violence Prevention and Treatment Board, or Treatment Board for short, is in place to monitor, work on policy related to, and help child advocacy centers like shelter houses. The members of the Governor-
appointed board work side-by-side with Ouderkirk to certify that the Shelterhouse has everything it needs to be effective.
“They have had to go through very tough times in years where our federal and state dollars did decline because of recessions and where we weren’t able to keep up with costs of living and also had a [state or federal spending] cut,” Treatment Board Executive Director Debi Cain said. “Any reduction is always difficult for the nonprofits that work in our arena. We are doing everything that we possibly can to communicate that.”
If Shelterhouse funding is cut, there will be less workers and in turn, fewer people to provide services in the community. In the 2015-2016 year, the Shelterhouse provided 2,658 hours of direct one-on-one service and spent 93 percent of the year at over capacity. In the same year, they had to turn away 215 people including children, according to the Shelterhouse. If the budget doesn’t grow this number could increase.
“We would have to sit down and make some really hard choices,” Ouderkirk said. “We haven’t done that yet because we are still hopeful that we won’t have to.”
Though facing the possibility of a tough economic year ahead, the Shelterhouse of Midland and the Treatment Board have faith in the community and government to see the importance of their job.
“The work we do is life-saving,” Cain said. “These are very integrated systems that are in the fabric of our communities. Not just the programs themselves, but also letting the police do their work and prosecutors do their work and judges do their work. For that reason, I’m choosing to be optimistic. There really isn’t any fat in the spending for this cause. Whatever happens, we will deal with when it happens.”
To learn more about the Shelterhouse, visit http://www.shelterhousemidland.org. To report abuse, call the 24-hour help line at (877) 216-6383.