Newsday | By Michael Gormley
michael.gormley@newsday.com
@GormleyAlbany
July 9, 2025
ALBANY — The state has added $100 million to expand a program that assists crime victims and their families, including Long Island children who survived a deadly domestic violence incident last year.
In all, the state Office of Victim Services will provide $379.5 million over three years beginning Oct. 1 to help crime victims and their surviving relatives pay for emergency services. Those services include housing, therapy, advocacy in family court, funeral costs, fees to remove bodies from morgues, and crime scene cleanup at homes. Those costs can add up to thousands of dollars for a single crime.
But the services provided through nonprofit groups, hospitals and local government agencies cost victims nothing.
Statewide, 230 grants were awarded this week by the state Office of Victim Services. Survivors and victims’ families can tap into the services immediately after a crime and “for as long as they need help to heal and thrive” after the crime, according to an announcement by Gov. Kathy Hochul.
A Long Island man has seen the value up close. He is a relative of young children injured when their mother was murdered last year in a domestic violence case.
“These kids were dragged into tragedy,” said the man, who asked to remain anonymous to protect the identity of the children now in his care. He credits the Crime Victims Center in Ronkonkoma for helping the children survive the ordeal.
“They helped them from Day One and help them every single day,” he told Newsday.
He moved to Long Island to care for the children after the brutal killing. But he said he couldn’t find an apartment or a house he could afford.
“I was days away with nowhere to live,” he recalled. But the Crime Victims Center found a house, helped pay for it, then furnished it. At Christmastime, the center and its donors provided a fully decorated tree. Presents appeared “wall to wall,” he said.
He said one of the children exclaimed Christmas morning, “Santa was here!”
Recently, he said the children came home from summer camp paid for through the center.
“They are jumping up and down and saying, ‘This is the best day of my life!’ ” he said.
Twenty-five new entities will be funded this year as the state expands its services.
The grants include $665,234 to the Crime Victims Center’s Nassau County services and $690,983 for its Suffolk County operation. Some of the funds will go to Safe Center LI, which served Nassau County’s survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse but has faced dire financial problems. Safe Center was forced to lay off workers this year and transfer some services to other nonprofit groups.
Other grants on Long Island ranged from $138,137 to the Family and Children’s Association based in Garden City and $2.05 million to Retreat Inc. based in East Hampton, which provides shelter and other safety support from children and adults who are victims of domestic and intimate partner violence, human trafficking and abuse including sexual assault.
A grant of $192,791 went to a newly funded organization, the Central American Refugee Center with offices in Hempstead, which assists immigrants.
State Sen. Julia Salazar (D-Brooklyn), chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Crime Victims, Crime and Correction, is among the strong supporters for victims services funding in the Legislature. The funding was widely supported in the Legislature and was part of the state budget approved in May.
“As a survivor of crime myself, I know what kind of physical, financial, and emotional toll the aftermath can be,” Salazar said in a written statement. “I’m proud New York is stepping up.”
