STABILIZE. MODERNIZE. INVEST.
 2027 Budget Priorities: Sustainable Domestic Violence Services for New Yorkers

The Challenge

New York's domestic violence service system faces extraordinary demand. In 2025 alone, domestic violence service providers delivered community-based services to 39,842 survivors, provided residential services to 10,705 survivors, and recorded 22,051 shelter denials.¹ Yet providers continue to operate within a framework of chronic underinvestment, unstable federal funding, delayed reimbursements, workforce strain, and funding structures that no longer reflect how services are delivered today.

Though domestic violence affects all communities, it does not affect all communities equally.² Black, Latino, Indigenous, immigrant, women, LGBTQI+, disabled, rural, and low-income New Yorkers often face heightened risks for domestic violence, greater barriers to safety, and disproportionate challenges accessing housing, healthcare, economic opportunity, and other resources that support long-term stability. The people providing domestic violence services predominantly reflect the same communities disproportionately impacted by domestic violence.

The chronic underinvestment of domestic violence services reflects a broader pattern of undervaluing both the communities most affected by domestic violence and the workforce that serves them.  

That is not equitable, just, or sustainable.

STABILIZE

The Band-Aid: Immediate Action Is Needed to Protect Critical Survivor Services Now

New York Must:

• Fully restore funding to licensed and approved domestic violence providers with state service mandates to protect survivor access to essential services across the state.
• Extend New York's $100 million annual commitment for 3 more years to bolster waning VOCA funding.
• Include domestic violence service providers in Targeted Inflationary Increases (TII).
• Return to drawdown funding that supports service delivery rather than forcing providers to absorb financial risk.
• Ensure timely contracting and reimbursement processes so providers are not forced to rely on loans, lines of credit, and other forms of debt to sustain essential services.

MODERNIZE

The Long-Term Solutions: Create a Funding System That Reflects Today's Reality

New York's domestic violence funding infrastructure has become unnecessarily complex and fragmented, creating duplicative layers of administration, oversight, reporting requirements, funding streams, and procurement processes that divert resources away from survivor services.

Domestic violence funding should be centered on survivors, not systems.

New York Must:

• Reduce duplicative administrative structures and redirect resources to serving survivors.
• End competitive procurement for licensed and approved domestic violence service providers and prioritize continuity, stability, and service quality.
• Modernize funding structures to support the full continuum of domestic violence services.
• Reform shelter funding methodologies to reflect the true costs of maintaining safety, staffing, readiness, and service quality.
• Recognize and value the expertise of NYSCADV and experienced, on-the-ground advocates by engaging them as true partners in the development of policy and funding solutions.

INVEST

The Priorities: Invest in Survivors and the People Who Serve Them

Where the state invests its resources reflects its priorities and reveals who and what is valued. Decades of underfunding have left the domestic violence service network struggling to meet the needs of survivors.

New York Must:

• Match state investment to the scale of New York's demand for domestic violence services.
• Make additional funding available and create a planful process for bringing in additional community-based organizations who wish to provide domestic violence services, with specific attention to including culturally specific programs.
• Reduce reliance on unstable federal funding streams through increased and sustained state investment.
• Fund domestic violence services at levels that keep pace with inflation and the true cost of service delivery.

¹ 2025 New York State Gender-Based Violence Dashboard, New York State Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence (OPDV), using NYS Office of Children and Family Services (OCFS) data.

² Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Resources for Action: Intimate Partner Violence Prevention. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. February 2024.