There are some services you do not fully understand until the day you need them.
For me, the Domestic Safety Resource Center was one of those services.
Years ago, when I needed help in Kiowa County, they were there. Not with judgment. Not with a bill. Not with a clipboard full of excuses. They were simply there.
They helped me with paperwork I did not know how to fill out. They sat with me in court when I did not want to sit there alone. They connected me with education, resources, and information I did not even know existed. They helped me understand my options at a time when fear, confusion, shame, and survival were all tangled together.
I paid nothing.
And I can say this plainly: their services were quite literally life saving for myself and my children.
I do not know where I would be today if those resources had not been available. I do not know if I would have gotten help. I do not know if I would have gotten out. I do know that when someone is living in abuse, the distance between staying and leaving can be one advocate, one phone call, one safe person sitting beside you in a courtroom.
That is why the permanent closure of the Domestic Safety Resource Center after 40 years of service should concern every person in southeast Colorado.
This was not just another nonprofit. DSRC was the only organization providing support specifically for victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and stalking in Prowers, Baca, Kiowa, and Cheyenne Counties. These are large rural counties, where miles matter, privacy is hard to find, and resources are already stretched thin.
When a service like this disappears, it does not create a small inconvenience. It creates a dangerous gap.
The Arkansas Valley Resource Center in La Junta has stepped up to offer limited remote services for victims in the former DSRC service area. That matters, and they deserve credit for doing what they can. But even their own leadership has been clear: they are not fully funded to serve the three counties they already cover. Taking on four more large counties is not realistic without funding, staffing, and support.
Remote help is better than no help. But remote help cannot sit next to a victim in court. Remote help cannot show up on scene. Remote help cannot walk someone through a restraining order in person. Remote help cannot replace the steady presence of a trained advocate who knows the local courts, the local law enforcement landscape, the local service providers, and the reality of rural survival.
And that is what should make all of us angry.
Colorado can always seem to find money when it wants to. Money can be found for studies, programs, offices, pet projects, political priorities, and plenty of things that sound nice in a press release but do not sit beside a terrified mother in court.
So why can the State of Colorado not find the money to keep lifesaving domestic violence services available in rural communities?
Why is the safety of women and children treated like an optional line item?
Why do rural victims have to be told, again and again, that there is not enough money, not enough staff, not enough coverage, not enough help?
Domestic violence in rural communities is not a small-town rumor or a private family problem. It is a public safety issue. It is a public health issue. It is a children’s issue. It is a courtroom issue. It is an economic issue. It is a life-and-death issue.
Rural victims already face barriers that urban victims may never have to think about. They may live far from law enforcement. They may not have transportation. They may not have money of their own. They may be afraid everyone in town will know their business. They may have children, livestock, jobs, school schedules, and nowhere safe to go. They may be dealing with an abuser who knows every road, every neighbor, every weakness in the system.
In rural Colorado, isolation can be part of the abuse.
That is why local advocacy matters.
It is not enough to tell victims to “just leave.” Leaving is often the most dangerous time. Leaving requires planning, documentation, transportation, housing, legal help, emotional support, and someone who knows how to help without making the situation worse.
That is what advocates do.
They do not just hand out brochures. They help people survive the hardest days of their lives.
The closure of DSRC should not be accepted quietly. It should be a wake-up call to state leaders, county commissioners, legislators, grant agencies, and anyone who claims to care about public safety in rural Colorado.
We cannot say we support victims and then allow the only specialized victim service provider in four rural counties to disappear.
We cannot hold candlelight vigils after tragedies and then fail to fund the services that help prevent them.
We cannot tell survivors they are brave for coming forward and then leave them alone when they do.
For 40 years, the Domestic Safety Resource Center served people in moments when they had nowhere else to turn. Its closure leaves behind more than an empty office. It leaves a silence where an advocate’s voice used to be.
And for someone still living in fear tonight, that silence may be deafening.
Colorado must do better. Not someday. Not after another report. Not after another tragedy. Now.
Because when we fail to fund domestic violence services, we are not saving money.
We are shifting the cost onto victims, children, courts, law enforcement, hospitals, schools, and communities.
And some costs are paid in lives.
