By the time most survivors of sexual violence reach out for help, they have already crossed a long and painful distance.
They have weighed whether anyone will believe them. They have calculated the risk of retaliation, humiliation, disbelief, or being blamed for what happened to them. They have sat, wondering whether to call a hotline, walk into a counseling center, or perhaps do nothing at all.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there are an estimated 2.7 million survivors of contact sexual violence in New Jersey, representing approximately one in every three residents. Yet now, in New Jersey, when survivors reach out for life-changing support, we may need to tell them that the help they are desperately seeking could take longer to obtain.
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The crisis unfolding in New Jersey’s sexual violence services sector is not abstract. It is not bureaucratic. It is not simply another line-item debate in a budget negotiation. It is a direct threat to the very infrastructure survivors rely on to remain safe, begin healing and rebuild their lives.
The New Jersey Coalition Against Sexual Assault’s statewide sexual violence services network is comprised of 31 programs across the state. Collectively, these providers have experienced an estimated $9 million in federal funding losses, including a 43% reduction in the Victims of Crime Act. These cuts are already producing devastating consequences.
Currently, nearly half of New Jersey’s county-based rape crisis centers have waitlists, and programs across the state report diminished capacity due to factors such as staff attrition. However, in 2025, a one-time $5.9 million in state legislative add-on funding helped stabilize programs, offsetting federal losses and addressing gaps in services to ensure that programs in every county could continue providing a range of critical services that include hotline response, counseling, case management and accompaniments to hospitals, police stations, and courts.
The problem is that one-time funding does not allow for long-term solutions. It is nearly impossible to retain staff, invest in critical programs and services, and bolster emergency response systems without stable annualized funding.
Without an increased state investment in sexual violence services, we can anticipate fewer advocates accompanying survivors to hospitals for forensic exams. Fewer counselors providing individual and group sessions. Fewer hotline staff answering calls in the middle of the night. Fewer legal advocates helping survivors navigate protective orders and criminal proceedings. And fewer resources for case managers to offer clients in their time of need, such as support with housing, utility bills, attorney fees, groceries and more.
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For decades, New Jersey has built a strong network of sexual violence programs offering free, 24-hour, confidential services. These programs are not luxuries. They are a necessity — a critical and irreplaceable part of the state’s emergency response infrastructure. Their staff receive specialized training to ensure every survivor receives the best possible care, grounded in trauma-informed best practices and a comprehensive understanding of the complex needs survivors face — post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, suicidal ideation, job loss, disruptions in education and more.
Yet the funding challenges these programs face reveal something uncomfortable about how sexual violence is still viewed in American culture: survivors are expected to endure extraordinary trauma while repeatedly proving why they deserve support afterward. Never has this been more visible on the national landscape than in recent months, as we have witnessed the impacts of a lack of trust in survivors and a lack of robust resources to support them in relation to the Epstein files.
When powerful people are protected over those who suffered at their hands, and when not enough is done to address and correct these harms, we send an overwhelming message to survivors that systems do not care enough about them — and that meaningful change is unlikely.
Then, when funding for these services disappears, the message survivors hear is unmistakable:
- We will believe you in theory, but not enough to fund the vital services you turn to.
- We will encourage reporting, but not adequately resource the systems survivors enter after reporting.
We will ask advocates to provide trauma-informed care while simultaneously failing to provide sufficient resources for the workforce expected to deliver it.
- And perhaps most dangerously of all: we will normalize scarcity in spaces where stability is essential.
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Trauma recovery depends on consistency, trust, and safety. But instability in funding produces instability in staffing, programming, outreach, and survivor relationships. Advocates burn out. Programs lose institutional knowledge. Survivors are placed on waitlists during moments when immediate support is needed.
This is not hypothetical.
Research consistently shows that survivors already face substantial barriers to disclosure and care, including shame, fear of retaliation, economic dependency, community stigma, and distrust of institutions. When systems become harder to access, many survivors simply stop trying. And sexual violence does not disappear because services do. In fact, there is another profound consequence to these cuts that deserves more attention: prevention itself becomes endangered.
Sexual violence programs do not only respond after harm occurs. They conduct prevention education in schools, colleges, and communities. They teach consent, healthy relationships, bystander intervention, and violence prevention strategies. They work upstream — in the difficult, slow terrain where cultural change actually happens.
When prevention funding collapses, we do not only experience a loss of vital services. What we lose is the ability to imagine that violence can be prevented at all.
These services are not redundant. They are not superfluous. They are not simply “nice things to have.” They are critical lifelines to individuals who have experienced horrific trauma. If these services are lost, it is survivors who will have to bear the burden of such cuts. We are certain no one would want to sit across from a survivor and tell them that their needs were not prioritized.
So, how can we consider a budget that will send that very message?
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Survivors and advocates know what is at stake. So, the question before all of us is whether New Jersey will continue building a system that responds to this urgent crisis — or quietly allow it to erode.
Budgets starkly lay out priorities. They reveal what a society is willing to protect when protection becomes expensive. And right now, survivors are watching very carefully what we choose.
