Shutdown affecting Rape Crisis of Cumberland County

Last year the small staff at Rape Crisis of Cumberland County helped almost 600 victims of sexual assault.

Sometimes it was just being that listening ear and the counseling voice on the other end of the 24-hour hotline.

Most times it meant more. Such as accompanying a victim to the emergency room or the police department, to the courthouse or to support group meetings.

“We could have contact with the victim multiple times, dozens of times,” said director Deanne Gerdes. “It depends on how active they want us to be in their situation.”

The center meets a great need, she says.

And she is convinced: “If we are not there, there’s nobody going to be there. No one’s going to say, ‘Oh yeah, I’ll go to the hospital with a rape victim.’ ”

Thanks to the partial government shutdown, now entering its 26th day, center staff is struggling to do that — just be there. All six paid staff at the office on Ramsey Street have been furloughed, including Gerdes.

Their last payday was Friday, Jan. 4. This Friday, the 18th, they will not receive a paycheck.

The center receives 60 percent of its funding through a federal grant it receives through the Violence Against Women Act.

The funds are administered by the state Governor’s Crime Commission, which is running as normal. But the money comes to them through the U.S. Department of Justice, which is partly closed because of the shutdown.

Gerdes says when she first learned the government might shut down, she and her team found it difficult to get information on who would be affected.

“I did not understand what ‘partial shutdown’ meant,” she says. “So our first conversations were about how we could assist Fort Bragg if their victims’ advocates were furloughed.

“We were a little over two weeks into it when we got an email from the Governor’s Crime Commission saying the funding is stopped.”

Gerdes consulted with her board. She says she gathered the staff on the 4th and told them she would not ask them to work without pay. There would be no judgment if they did not report for work and instead looked for another job, filed unemployment — whatever they needed to do to pay their own bills.

“We could either perform our regular duties and our regular hours and eventually we could get paid,” she says. “Or, you did not have to come to work Monday morning. We left it completely up to the employees.”

Four of the five staffers chose to come in the following Monday and have been on the job since.

For the employee who didn't: "We are 100 percent supportive of her decision," says Gerdes.

The center is taking things one day at a time. Gerdes says she is not for certain on any given day who will show up for work.

“We do have other funding that comes in,” she says. “But Governor’s Crime Commission pays our utilities. So we don’t have a phone, or we don’t have employees here to answer it. It’s kind of an all or nothing. I can’t pay half of one employee and not another employee.”

Although Rape Crisis is known primarily for its hotline and its major fundraiser, Walk A Mile in Her Shoes, the center does much more. This includes working with the Fayetteville Police Department, and assault victims, as the police work through cold cases related to sexual assault.

Gerdes noted the center’s support of a state law, passed in 2017, that mandated law enforcement agencies submit their backlog of sexual assault evidence kits — called rape kits — to the state’s crime lab for testing. Rep. Billy Richardson, a Cumberland County Democrat, introduced the legislation. More than 15,000 untested kits were submitted.

Gerdes says Rape Crisis of Cumberland County is a national leader in helping to address this issue.

“We’re doing some great things,'' she said. “It’s horrible that we’re going through this.”

Columnist Myron B. Pitts can be reached at mpitts@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3559.