SW Iowa Times

A $5 million drop in federal funding for an Iowa domestic violence program while deaths are steadily rising "is completely unacceptable," a Des Moines-area accounting assistant said in a recent social media post.

If the amount of federal funding for domestic violence drops, cuts should be made elsewhere, Danielle Moen said in her Tuesday, Oct. 26, Facebook post.

Danielle Moen, an accounting assistant at Universal Insurance Group in Des Moines | linkedin.com/in/danielle-moen-88902b201/

"This subject hits close to home for me," Moen said. "I definitely think that cutting funding to the services for domestic violence victims, survivors and their families is completely unacceptable. I can think of many ways the state could cut funding to other unnecessary things to continue to fund the domestic violence advocate services."

Moen has been an accounting assistant Universal Insurance Group in Des Moines for more than three years, according to information on her LinkedIn page.

Moen's post linked to a KCCI Des Moines 8 news story that reported 17 Iowans died from domestic violence in the first nine months of this year, the same number as in all of 2020. That tragic figure comes at the same time that Iowa received significantly less federal funding than in 2020.

The funding comes from money gathered from federal prosecutions, which have been waning and more prosecutions have been deferred, Sandi Tibbetts Murphy, Iowa Attorney General's crime victim assistance division director, said in the KCCI story at the Iowa Attorney General's Office.

"Those dollars weren't going in to the crime victims fund," Tibbetts Murphy said. "So, our amount was decreasing all along."

More people in Iowa died from domestic violence last year than in any other year since 2010, which means this year could be even worse. Domestic violence programs and services in Iowa can expect a 20% cut in their budgets because of the drop in federal funding, KCCI reported.

"We're already at last year's total for homicides in domestic violence situations," Tibbetts Murphy said. "We have three months yet and we have concerns that that trend is going to continue."

About 5,000 fewer survivors will get help this fiscal year, a number that could rise to 23,500 fewer victims getting help in fiscal 2022, according to an Axios news story that cited calculations from the Attorney General's office.

The still ongoing pandemic has made the problem even worse for victims living with their abusers and having fewer places to seek help.

Moen's Facebook post and the KCCI and Axios news stories came the day after a a generous donation of donation of hair and personal care products, T-shirts and duffle bags by Harmony-A Salon for your SOUL in Des Moines was announced by the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence. In a Twitter post, the coalition thanked the salon for its support of "survivors of intimate partner violence."