What Survivors deserve is a standard that is still falling short in the communities most impacted by sexual harm, and we need to talk about it.
While there may be many pitfalls as to why this is occurring, understanding what survivors deserve versus what they receive is a discrepancy that should not be ignored. So, let’s talk about what survivors deserve, based on their own words shared with us. As a part of the survivor-led Community Engagement team at CAASE, we engage with the communities that need support the most. Survivors deserve holistic support, stability, and accountability. And while the three marks may appear to be met, when we dive deeper into what this truly encompasses, we are further away from the goal post than we may think.
Holistic support is a topic that has been on the rise in the last six years. Uprooted by the pandemic and social justice movements, many people began to have honest conversations around if people are truly receiving the care that epitomizes the many intersections of our experiences, traumas, and identities. While the topic has been up for discussion, many survivors feel that the progress towards holistic actualization seems distant and unlikely, and they aren’t wrong. With the recent change of administration, highlighting the disparities and disproportions in certain communities affected by sexual harm has been silenced and many services have been cut that specifically attempt to address the unique needs of survivors in BIPOC spaces. Providing supportive services should include our many identities that affect our daily lives and experiences and should not be stifled out of service provision. Survivors deserve to be seen for their WHOLE self, as each identity shapes the unique needs of each individual survivor.
Amid intense political scrutiny and pressure, funding cuts have become a running theme in the concerns of many NPOs and service organizations as it is causing the dwindling of staff and the capacity to provide services to existing clients and new.
Many organizations are now operating on skeleton crews, and this means survivors’ access to services has become unobtainable.
Many survivors can attest that while this is not something new and has happened before, it has never reached the extent to today’s reality.
Many survivors will lose their therapy support, representation, and daily life stability due to the many funding cuts specific to gender-based violence, but especially services designed to focus on communities that are disproportionately affected.
This means the stability that survivors continue to strive for is becoming harder to reach. Tomorrow, a survivor will have to worry about where they will live. A survivor will have to retell their story to a new therapist, if they can find one. A survivor will reach out for crisis support that may never come. Without stability, survivors cannot heal, and EVERY survivor deserves the opportunity to heal.
Funding cuts may not be uncharted territory, but it is still terrain that is difficult to navigate, and it seems that there are not enough people with the power to make change taking the effect seriously. The powers that be should be held accountable for how they prioritize matters that affect the communities they serve. While their reach to control financial movement may only extend within their jurisdictions, they do possess the power to advocate and formulate budgets that uplift survivors. The services that survivors need and deserve should be of great importance. Supporting survivors improves social spaces and empowers communities to thrive. When lawmakers sit for a roundtable, survivors should be on the agenda, discussed with equitable importance as affordability, health care, and safety because each of them transects survivorship, and the concerns of every constituent they were elected to serve.
What survivors deserve is difficult to synopsize into three things, but when listening to survivors, holistic support, stability, and accountability where subjects that seem to arise within each interaction and cannot be ignored if we are to be who we say we are. How we live up to the standard is by taking action. Advocate on behalf of survivors. Attend town halls and other forums that provide spaces for the public to voice their concerns. Donate when you can. Volunteer if possible and continue to make a lot of noise about how funding supporting survivors is more than an opportunity to have a “do good” moment, but a commitment to showing up for people that feel invisible and unmet. While the climb will be steep, we each have the power to move, and it is needed more now than ever.
To all the survivors out there: we see you, we hear you, and you deserve it all.
CAASE published this piece on September 4, 2026. It was authored by Saunté Harden-Tate and edited by Lizzy Springer. Learn more about our staff.
