I have worked at The Next Step Domestic Violence Project for nearly seven years. Here are some of the abuses that I know women, children and men have endured here in Downeast Maine:

A woman raped with a beer bottle (by an acquaintance); a man stabbed with a fork and his hand then slammed in a car door (by his wife); a woman sold for prostitution (by her husband); a woman hit with a car (by her ex-girlfriend); a man shot to death (by his son); a woman doused with kerosene and set on fire (by her husband); a man beaten, stalked and terrorized (by his boyfriend); a woman thrown out of a moving car (by her husband).

Does this sound like the kind of community that has no need of free, 24-hour domestic violence services? Then why is a crippling amount of state funding (more than $1 million) being cut from domestic violence projects when we have already had seven homicides in seven weeks, with most known to be domestic?

Does Maine need: 24-hour crisis hot lines, shelters, safe homes and transitional apartments; legal advocates and attorneys for victims of domestic violence; trained victims’ advocates to lend support and assistance to law enforcement, medical, civil-legal and social service providers when they are working with victims of domestic violence?

Do Maine children need free programming, peer leadership opportunities and school-based support groups or drop-in advocacy around issues of bullying, family violence and dating abuse?

If the answers to any of these questions seem to be yes, then don’t allow this death-blow cut to domestic violence funding. Some, if not all, of these services will disappear.

Leslie Linder

Penobscot