Domestic violence organizations are turning away thousands of survivors each day, according to the latest snapshots of need—and the gap between demand and capacity is showing up in courtrooms and in people’s homes, not just in spreadsheets.
On January 18, 2025, Julia Gilbert kicked her fiancé out of their shared apartment in Minnesota, saying she’d already made up her mind for some time. “When the apartment door shut, I remember knowing it was right,” she recalled. A week later, she filed a petition for a harassment restraining order, seeking limits on communication and in-person contact after alleging physical, financial, sexual and psychological abuse.
Her timeline quickly turned into a kind of bureaucratic maze. In her January 26 statement justifying the order, Gilbert alleged that her ex had unprotected sex with her without her permission. After intense pain and heavy bleeding, she went to a doctor. Medical records viewed by Misryoum with her consent say the bleeding could have been a miscarriage. Her petition also described a text exchange after she told him she didn’t want him coming to the apartment alone, including the line: “I can always come when I want.”
By January, the harassment restraining order was granted. But when her ex contested it four days after being served, everything became a rush—Gilbert had to secure a lawyer within two months or face court alone. She said she moved to Hennepin County away from much of her support network in southern Minnesota, and her finances were stretched thin: she’d been relying on buy now, pay later plans and help from parents “who didn’t really have money to spare.” She also said she wanted to file a police report but was scared to go to the station herself because of personal connections her ex had within the department. Gilbert said she was told escort services to the police station weren’t offered anymore.
It’s a small, ordinary detail—something you could miss in a stack of filings—like the way she remembers the apartment door shutting. Then contrast that with what happened later: the restraining order was overturned after the contested hearing. Gilbert said she had photographs of bruises and a recording of her ex admitting to unprotected sex without her consent, described as “stealthing,” a form of sexual violence recognized in some states, but one that Minnesota lacks specific laws against. She felt unprepared going into the remote hearing and described her lawyer’s performance as inadequate during aggressive cross-examination, including references to her mental health issues. In an order for dismissal, the judge ruled Gilbert and her ex had a “mutual lack of boundaries” and said testimony did not meet the criteria for an HRO.
The federal backdrop matters here, and Misryoum newsroom reporting and editorial desk analysis point to a system under pressure from both policy churn and under-resourcing. As Gilbert was trying to survive rent, legal logistics, and the aftermath of ending a years-long relationship, executive orders issued by President Donald Trump disrupted domestic violence organizations across the country. The federal government is the main funder of domestic violence services; Misryoum reported that changes to how grants could be used—plus delayed notices of funding opportunities from the Department of Justice’s Office on Violence Against Women—left groups uncertain about what services they could offer. Misryoum also noted that $200 million of last year’s appropriations hasn’t yet made it to providers.
That uncertainty piles onto needs that were already rising after the pandemic. Misryoum editorial team stated that intimate partner violence demands rose during lockdowns, while organizations struggled as some services paused and shelters faced closure to reduce spread of the virus. Temporary relief from the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 expired in 2025, but demand didn’t fall. Violence Free Minnesota, the state’s coalition for 90 service providers, said survivors are now more complex cases, requiring more time and more holistic assistance, even if the number of people served stayed flat. “We don’t know what’s going to happen on a day to day, week to week basis with our funding,” Artika Roller of Cornerstone Minnesota’s leadership team said.
On a national level, the numbers are stark: Misryoum editorial desk noted that in 2025, the National Network to End Domestic Violence counted 84,146 victims served by domestic violence advocates over a single 24-hour period, while 13,018 people couldn’t be helped due to lack of staffing, funding, or other resources. Violence Free Minnesota pointed out that the share of survivors unable to receive help nearly tripled from 2024 to 2025 to 29 percent. Meanwhile, the Violence Against Women Act—renewed in 2022—authorizes $1.1 billion each year, but Misryoum newsroom reporting says appropriations for fiscal 2025 totaled $713 million. Other funding through the Victims of Crime Act has also dwindled since 2018, with attempts to close the gap largely stalled in Congress.
Gilbert’s story doesn’t end with her court date. She said she’s been cycling through hotlines and legal referrals, trying to find help with housing and therapy while dealing with PTSD and the destabilizing stress of losing safety and stability all at once. She also says she’s still not sure what protections exist when survivors try to stay in their apartments rather than break leases. At the same time, she’s now fighting another, quieter clock: she may not be able to keep her housing as Minnesota’s housing crisis tightens.
For domestic violence advocates, the stakes are the same, even if the paperwork looks different. Misryoum editorial desk noted that under a proposed 2027 budget, the Minnesota Office of Justice Programs would cut victim services funding by about 20 percent, or $12 million, with the shortfall blamed on gaps in annual federal Victims of Crime Act funds. In Minnesota and beyond, that’s the tension federal policy can intensify: when systems are already stretched, any delay, uncertainty, or shortfall can mean survivors get turned away—sometimes before they’re able to file, and sometimes before they’re able to win.
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