domestic violence continues to threaten the health and safety of so many in New Jersey and the victims are most often women and children an annual report called domestic violence counts takes a deeper dive into who is most affected what services they're most in need of and even worse what services they can't access in spite of the need Raven Santana spoke to some of the folks leading the effort to meet the needs of domestic violence survivors over 90% of homicides in Bergen County are related to domestic violence I know people are shocked when they hear that Dr Julie Miner is the executive director of the center for Hope and safety located in Bergen County the center's mission is to help victims of domestic violence be safe and rebuild their lives each year we answer hundreds of calls uh people calling our hot hotline reaching out for help because they are no longer safe in their homes and um at the safe house in 2023 we provided housing to 296 individuals the majority of them are women but also many children 160 of them um are children during the survey 31 out of 39 or 94% of identified domestic violence programs in New Jersey participated of the 1,455 victims served in a 24-hour period in September 937 adult and child victims of domestic violence sought safe shelter 518 victims received services including Transportation legal support and therapy and domestic violence hotlines received 564 calls averaging nearly 24 per hour the report also found that almost all unmet requests were for emergency shelter something that Dr Miner says is critical to survivors housing is incredibly important many don't realize that Financial abuse is tied in with domestic violence 99% of the time the victim will be financially abused that's a mean for the abuser to help control the victim keep the victim within the relationship within the home we are working against a housing crisis in New Jersey which means that even when victims do come in for shelter or transitional housing oftentimes there's very little for them at the end of that in terms of permanent housing and so victims often find themselves staying in our services longer um having to go back to the abusive situation or in some cases even ending up homeless because there are no options available Nicole morela is the co-executive director for the New Jersey coalition to end domestic violence the state level nonprofit organization has a membership of 33 domestic violence programs across the state that provide services to victims and their families Morel says when the pandemic ended so did funding now we have to thin out and kind of cut back on some of our services uh we have to put caps on how long somebody can stay with us or the number of survivors we can serve at one time so while it may look like the numbers are decreasing what's actually happening is this is an impact of funding cuts and our programs not being able to reach the same number of victims as we served in 2022 and 2021 both morela and Miner say they're concerned that a decrease in funding allocation for domestic violence could mean a cut in Services counselors and shelter staff they now hope the state increases funding as it could mean the difference between life and death for so many domestic violence victims in the state for NJ Spotlight news I'm Raven Santana support for the medical report is provided by Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey an independent licensee of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association [Music]