July 6, 2023
By Liz Roberts
As the COVID-19 pandemic took hold in the spring of 2020, victims of domestic violence seeking orders of protection at the city’s Family Courts were greeted instead with padlocked doors. Like many public buildings, the courts were closed due to fears of contagion.
Taped to the doors were signs directing victims seeking help and legal assistance to call Safe Horizon. Over the next several months, our call volume was staggering. In September 2020, Safe Horizon’s Domestic Violence Law Project alone assisted with nearly half of the 906 orders of protection sought by victims of domestic violence across New York City.
Safe Horizon’s programs remained open and accessible to our clients because our amazing, dedicated staff continued to show up each and every day to help survivors find paths to safety. And our staff continue to show up for survivors each and every day despite the many challenges that face our city.
The people of New York owe our staff and the hundreds of thousands of human services workers that keep our communities afloat much more than our gratitude. We owe them a living wage that recognizes the very difficult, demanding, and essential work they do.
Along with hundreds of our fellow human service nonprofit providers, Safe Horizon joined the #JustPay campaign, spearheaded by the Human Services Council, to demand a 6.5% cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for staff in the nonprofit workforce. This long-overdue investment in working people is a moral imperative. It is the right thing to do, and it will help Safe Horizon and our sister organizations retain staff who are proud of their work but might otherwise leave for better-paying jobs almost anywhere else.
And so, we are deeply disappointed and angry that the city’s final budget for FY24 only includes a very small “workforce enhancement” for the staff at Safe Horizon and across the sector who work so hard on behalf of vulnerable New Yorkers.
Let me be perfectly clear: If Mayor Adams cares about public safety, if Mayor Adams believes that domestic violence survivors and their families deserve access to safety and support, if Mayor Adams understands the importance of investing in the working-class people of NYC, then he must commit to #JustPay for our staff. We will not settle for less.
It’s time to #JustPay our workforce.