(Spirit Lake)– The Dickinson County Board of Supervisors this (Wed.) morning heard an update from the Center Against Abuse and Sexual Assault, or CAASA. Executive Director Stephanie Henrich says this past year was another busy one for them in Dickinson county…
“In the last year we worked with 30 survivors in your county with direct support. And with direct support it looks different in many ways. We do medical and legal advocacy, we do 24 hour hotline, we have responded to crisis and on scene crimes. We also have done medical advocacy which is in the hospital and assisting and covering any relocation costs, anything that we can do for them. Get them groceries or pay for the rent. That is what we’ve done. CAASA provides that kind of support throughout the healing process. There’s not a time limit on when we stop helping the survivor. That’s when they’re time, they feel it’s right, we stop.”
Henrich says the increase in demand for services comes as the agency is also experiencing funding and staffing issues…
“CAASA is right now at about a 22 percent budget cut from CVAD which is Crime Victims Assistance Division. Now that is where most of our funding comes from. I’m trying to make those changes so we’re not so dependent on that funding, but it is what we do use most of our funding for. Right now this year we got $595,000. I can tell you that’s about $250,000 down from the last application that we did to the state. So $478,000 of that is salaries. And your average advocate makes $32,613 a year, and I can tell you that isn’t enough for what we do and the trauma that we see every day. You know, some day I would like to give them that 2.8 percent raise for that cost of living, and I can’t do such a thing. So I’ve got to hope my team stays with me for the ride a little bit while I make this happen and help their counties and get more funding so we can help each other.”
Henrich says she’s also expecting a 37 percent decrease in state funding through the Victims of Crime Act, or VOCA, program.
On a positive note, Henrich says CAASA just opened a new store in Cherokee that sells donated houseware goods and furniture, which she says will provide the agency with a permanent funding source in the future…
“It was more than just a store. It’s stability. It comes with, we hope, about $90,000 to $100,000 in the next year and that funding source to be stable to come back into CAASA also, but not only that, the store is beautiful and it is able to now give everybody in the community a chance to be able to afford a couch, a chair, or FCC or Upper Des Moines or anybody to call me and say Stephanie, I need a bed, do you have one? Yes, you can have one.”
Henrich requested an $8,000 contribution from Dickinson county for the upcoming fiscal year, an increase from the $5,000 current amount. The supervisors will consider the request during upcoming budget talks.
