In the Northwoods, domestic violence and sexual assault rates are climbing.
At the same time, a recent federal budget cut threatens to close one of the only shelters in the region.
From 2022 to 2023, Oneida County saw an almost 100% increase in sexual assaults or rapes.
Sara is an Outreach Coordinator for the Tri-County Council on Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault in Rhinelander.
“It's unbelievable, right? I mean, what that shows is that either one, people are reporting more, or two, you're having an increase in victims. And it could be a combination of both. These problems are not going away. Vilas, every county has seen increases across the board in domestic violence and sexual assault,” she said.
Most of the funding for the organization comes from a federal program called VOCA, or the Victims of Crime Act.
Massive budget cuts threaten devastating impacts- Tri-County Council might lose staff or they might need to close the shelter altogether.
By October 1st, they’ll automatically be operating at a minimum of a $200,000 deficit.
“One of the things that I'm always telling anybody that listens is a lot of times, we are first responders. A lot of times, people do not call the police first, when something domestic violence or sexual assault-related is happening,” she said.
Instead, they may go to the hospital first.
There, Tri-County Council is called to support them through Sexual Assault Nurse Exams, or SANE.
They also help with crisis and safety planning, as well as legal advocacy, and hold awareness outreach events at local schools to teach students about what healthy relationships look like.
“We can go to school and say, look, they think these are healthy signs of a relationship, and they're clearly not so can we come in and maybe do an assembly or a program or something to address whatever we are able to glean from these answers?” she said.
“The problem is only growing, it's not getting easier to manage. And so losing what we do and what we provide to the community, it would be even a heavier burden on law enforcement, potentially social service organizations, churches, other organizations that help people in the community,” she explained.
In addition to funding, Tri-County Council is looking for more board members.
You can learn the statistics of those served by the Tri-County Council here.
