Grant Funds Available for Local
Crime Victim Assistance Efforts

DES MOINES.   Attorney General Tom Miller and the Crime Victim Assistance Division of his office announced today that grant funds are available for nonprofit agencies, and for law enforcement, courts, and prosecution efforts that provide services to victims of crime. The state and federal grant funds will total several million dollars. Grants will support the crime-victim efforts of local agencies around the state for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2004. In the current year, over 80 Iowa agencies received crime-victim grant funds.

Applications are available from the Crime Victim Assistance Division, Lucas Building, 321 E. 12^thSt., Des Moines, Iowa 50319. Completed applications must be received at the Crime Victim Assistance Division office by 4:30 p.m. March 15, 2004.

A grant-writing workshop will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. February 6 at the Wallace State Office Building, 600 East Locust in Des Moines. For more information, contact Virginia Beane, Crime Victim Assistance Division, 515-281-5044 or 1-800-373-5044.

Details on Crime Victim Assistance Grant Funds:

Grant funds administered by the Crime Victim Assistance Division come from several sources for various purposes:

• Funds from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Family Violence Prevention and Services Act, are available to programs providing services to victims of domestic abuse.
  
  
• Funds from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office for Victims of Crime, Victims of Crime Act, are available to programs providing direct services to victims of crime. Non-profit and government victim service programs that coordinate with other community and government victim programs and utilize volunteers are eligible to apply for funds.  
  
  
• Funds from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office on Violence Against Women, are available for agencies and programs including but not limited to state offices and agencies, public or private nonprofit organizations, units of local government, and nonprofit and non-governmental victim service programs that work to keep victims of sexual assault, domestic violence and stalking safe, while holding offenders who commit such crimes accountable for their actions.
  
  
• State funds also may be available for domestic abuse programs and sexual abuse programs, including the Iowa Domestic Abuse Hotline and the Iowa Sexual Abuse Hotline.

Current-year federal and state grant funds total about $8.7 million. The amount of state and federal grant funds available for the fiscal year beginning July 1 will be determined later this spring, and may be less than for the current fiscal year.

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