Domestic violence claims the lives of more than 200 Texans every year, and there aren’t always adequate resources available to help those in need.
Half of all survivors were turned away from shelters due to lack of space just last year, according to the Texas Council On Family Violence.
As lobbyists trek to the Capitol to advocate for their priorities, those concerned with the protection of people facing family violence have their own wish list for lawmakers.
Molly Voyles, the public policy director for the Texas Council On Family Violence, said her group is pushing for more funding to help survivors.
“We believe strong support for funding to increase our housing availability would be key,” Voyles said. “We’re also focused on policy priorities in our state. Over 200, primarily women, are murdered each year by their intimate partner. And we believe it’s time for everyone to come together and say ‘no more.’”
Voyles said she calculates the amount of money the state needs to spend on this issue based on the number of women turned away from shelters.
“Each year we look at the number of people who called a Texas domestic violence program and were told ‘no’ because they were full,” she said. “And then we use the Health and Human services costs per client. We believe the number we would need over the next biennium is $31 million so that we could never say ‘no,’ or at least attempt to never say ‘no,’ in our state.”
Voyles is also pushing for a task force to study how to prevent domestic violence deaths from occurring in the first place.
“Research both in our state and nationally has said over and over there are three top lethality factors. One is strangulation, one is stalking, and one is the presence of a firearm in the home,” she said.
“We would like a task force of a wide variety of folks to come together and help us create a list of the resources and policy recommendations for the 90th (legislative session) that would help us reduce that 200 (deaths).”
Ideally, Voyles said this would be a legislatively mandated two-year task force.
“We’d love all of our partners to come together,” she said. “As a coalition, there are things we know, but we also know our partners in law enforcement are quite often in danger when they respond to a scene. We know our prosecutors are working hard. We’d love everyone to come together to think about how we can reduce fatalities in our state.”
Voyles said her experience talking to lawmakers is that she sometimes faces resistance from people who don’t know the full scope of domestic violence.
“If you have worked in this field, you’re quite aware of those top lethality factors I mentioned, or you’re aware of the number of primarily women being murdered,” she said. “But if you are not in this field, it comes to you as quite a surprise.
So I think sometimes on issues around, for example, firearms transfers, until folks know we are not looking for new laws – we are looking for implementation, we are looking for you to know what we know – I think sometimes there can be confusion about what we’re attempting to do.”
Voyles also has a few other items on her legislative wish list.
“The first is that currently in our state, victims of family violence do not have the right under the Code of Criminal Procedure to confer with the prosecutor around a plea,” she said. “We believe giving survivors of family violence that right – a right that survivors of sexual assault, for example, already have – it will not only be critical to their safety, but it would promote enhanced interaction in the justice system and aid our prosecution to give survivors a voice.”
Voyles hopes to see laws passed this year to invest in prevention — including House Bill 1332 introduced by Rep. Josey Garcia of San Antonio, which would address policies for dating violence on school campuses.
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Voyles emphasized that for anyone who is considering leaving an abusive situation, there is help out there.
“I would first say to any survivor that the strength they’re exhibiting to navigate that relationship or to consider if they want to leave is immense. But there is help out there. The National Domestic Violence Hotline is open all day, every day,” she said.
“And if they’re looking for a local program, they can always go to www.tcfv.org to find a local program. And at the end of the day, if there’s anybody out there who wants help, know that most of these resources are all 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
The National Domestic Violence hotline can be reached at 1-800-799-7233.
