Urgent action is needed to ensure that DV service providers have the funding required to maintain services to all New Yorkers experiencing domestic violence. To make a united effort and increase our impact, we are asking advocates to contact their NYS Senators and Assemblymembers. Below is a sample letter you can send to them. We encourage you to tailor the sample letter to highlight any other information you feel your legislators should be aware of (impacts to your program, what you are seeing in the field, nuances specific to DV programs and the victims/survivors you work with, etc.). When sending your letter, please include the supporting documents in the Legislator Packet (see links below).

Sample Letter

[DATE]

The Honorable [Legislator’s full name]

[Street Address]

Albany, NY [ZIP]

RE: NYSCADV’s 2026 Advocacy Day

Dear [Assembly Member/Senator + last name],

I am writing to you today as a/an [advocate, program director, executive director, etc.] at [your organization].

Are you aware that thousands of New Yorkers experience domestic violence (DV) every day. In fact, New York State continues to have the highest demand for DV services in the country. According to a national survey, on one day in New York in 2024, more than 10,000 adult and child victims of DV sought help from New York’s DV service providers. More troubling, 1,717 of these victims did not receive the help they requested due to a lack of resources and staff – a 64% increase in unmet demand from the year before.

Why aren’t these survivors getting the help they need? New York relies almost exclusively on federal funding to support DV services. The federal government has taken several steps to cut or limit this funding. Most recently, it sought to freeze New York’s TANF and Title XX grants. New York uses $91 million of these grants to support DV services every year. Now that funding is in jeopardy. We urge the Legislature to set aside in its one-house budget bills $10 million of state emergency reserves to ensure all licensed DV programs can continue to operate under these challenging circumstances. In addition, DV programs facing insurmountable losses to facilities (due to natural disasters, fires, floods or major mechanical failures) should be able to access this funding so they don’t have to obtain high interest-bearing loans to rebuild or close their doors.

Additional budget recommendations include:

1. Increasing by $25 million the Governor’s earmark in the Aid to Localities (ATL) Budget 
   for OVS (page 1085) to address the federal VOCA shortfall;
2. Strengthening New York’s safety net by ending competitive procurements for licensed 
   DV programs;
3. Increasing the TANF set-aside for non-residential DV services by $6.5 million to meet demand and account for inflation increases over the last 25 years;
4. Providing a 7.8% Targeted Inflationary Increase on the total value of all NYS contracts with OCFS-licensed, primary purpose DV programs; and,
5. Enhancing shelter access for single adult survivors with the SAFE Shelter Act (A3264/ S7738).

More information about these requests is available on the accompanying document. Please contact me at [phone number or email], or Joan Gerhardt, Director of Public Policy and Advocacy at the New York State Coalition Against Domestic Violence, at jgerhardt@nyscadv.org, with questions.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,

[Your name and title]

Materials Drop Off Script

Sample Script for Dropping Literature At Legislators’ Offices

Good afternoon. My name is [name] and I am the [title] at [name of agency/organization]. If appropriate: I am a constituent in [name of Senator or Assembly Member]’s district.

I’m in Albany today for NYSCADV’s Advocacy Day. We have several budget requests that we’d like the Legislature to consider when negotiating the final budget. Here is a copy of those requests if [name of Senator or Assembly Member] would like to review them.

Most important, we are asking the Legislature to create a $10 Million Emergency Contingency Fund to stabilize DV agencies facing closure due to a potential freeze of federal TANF and Title XX funds.

Thank you!

If the staff asks for a meeting or additional information:

Please contact Joan Gerhardt at NYSCADV at jgerhardt@nyscadv.org.

Materials for Legislators