The North Coast Rape Crisis Team is facing a multi-pronged, precarious financial situation. Amanda LeBlanc, executive director of NCRCT, said the services they provide are “at risk in a way that they never have been before.”

She said that 97% of the organization’s funding comes from the federal government. Its major funding source has dwindled in recent years, only made up for by state allocations. The organization is awaiting Donald Trump’s federal funding freeze attempts to play out in court.

The crisis team, which works in Del Norte and Humboldt counties and helped about 900 survivors of sexual assault last year, gets most of its funding through the federal Victims of Crime Act. But two years ago, it was informed their funding had been cut by about 44.7% from California’s Office of Emergency Services, which administers the federal funds.

LeBlanc said in October 2023 the organization was preparing to lay off half of its staff and completely redo its service delivery model, with an estimated $380,000 less in funding. Last minute, the reduction was made up for by a line item in the state budget.

“We were anticipating a 44.7% cut to our services. Gov. Newsom put in a one-time $103 million general fund line item, which didn’t make us whole, but made us about 95% whole for this fiscal year,” said LeBlanc.

But now, the organization believes the state won’t make up for this gap next fiscal year.

“California has put out three budgets so far with not a dime for sexualized violence, and we have been told that California is not going to come and save us again this year,” she said.

On top of this, the organization is concerned the Trump administration will axe all federal funds to the organization, and is waiting to see whether Trump’s widespread federal funding freeze executive order will be held up in court. Right now, the organization can continue to access funds promised because of a court injunction after a coalition of 23 attorneys general, including California’s, sued the Trump administration over the freeze. A federal judge in Rhode Island extended a block on the order last month for the states that sued.

The White House said the directive to pause federal grants and loans is necessary to ensure funding complies with Trump’s wide reaching executive orders.

“This administration has named that trauma and gender are two words that the federal government will no longer fund,” noted LeBlanc.

NCRCT operates a bilingual 24/7 crisis hotline and has on-call advocates to support survivors of sexual assault at local hospitals, plus certified counselors in interactions with law enforcement. The organization’s employees also educate the community to prevent sexualized violence and provides support through the justice system and through peer counseling, including forensic analysis. NCRCT has about 15 full-time equivalent staff, of which 9 are full-time employees, who operate the hotline and respond to reports of sexual violence.

The organization, which has operated for about 50 years, had to lay off one person after prevention education funds ended at the end of 2024.

“The cuts have already started. We are not able to respond to classroom presentations about consent education, healthy relationships and human trafficking,” said LeBlanc.

The picture for the organization is not rosy if these funds aren’t allocated at the state or federal level, and is kickstarting advocacy efforts, she said. She estimated they could float payroll and expenses for 1 to 2 months, which she said is only because of the organization’s Dancing in the Rain Gala, held Saturday in Eureka.When asked what would happen to services if the funding isn’t made up by the state, LeBlanc said, “We would probably go to an acute response service, which means that we would try to keep our response to law enforcement and to medical exams. We would not be able to do court accompaniment. We would not be able to do peer counseling. We would not be able to do community outreach and information,” said LaBlanc.

“I don’t know necessarily, whether or not we would be able to even keep our offices open. And we would, basically, we would have to go down to sort of the nuts and bolts of our services, and lose all of the beautiful healing things that we do,” she said, noting it is a survivors right by state law to have a sexual assault counselor when speaking to law enforcement or have a medical forensic exam, also called rape kits.

“Because as beautiful and lovely and committed as my team and I are, we are experts, and we are the only state-certified sexual assault counselors in Humboldt and Del Norte counties,” she said.

LeBlanc attributed this decline in VOCA funds to deregulation of financial crimes during the first Trump administration, as the fund is largely sourced from fines and penalties from “white collar” crimes.

She noted the organization’s services remain open and will be pushing legislators to fund the services in the coming months.

“We are here for survivors. We are working with survivors, and so please reach out if you need us. And if anything changes, we will certainly let people know via our website,” she said.

Sage Alexander can be reached at 707-441-0504.