Nevada is no stranger to being at the bottom of a slew of rankings, from healthcare and education to living expenses.
The situation is no different for the state’s rates of power-based violence: The Nevada Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence says Nevada ranks fifth in the country for the most rape cases and second in the country for domestic violence.
So, when UNLV’s Jean Nidetch Care Center was one of two local organizations awarded a nearly $400,000 grant from the federal Office on Violence Against Women late last year, they obviously celebrated.
Christina Hall is the Care Center’s director. She says that among all the students the organization serves at Southern Nevada’s three major colleges (UNLV, CSN and NSU), family violence is the most common type of abuse reported to case workers.
“Because we have a big commuter population and a large population of students who are from Nevada originally,” she says, “many folks are experiencing violence in their homes from parents or caregivers.”
In the 2024 academic year, the Care Center helped 257 such local victims of violence. To further that existing effort, they’re planning to use the new grant money to partner with local agencies, like the Nevada Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence, plus the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.
However, the grant funding is continuously provided over a three-year span, rather than as a lump sum. That means there’s the possibility the new Trump administration could step in and restrict it, as it’s already attempted to do with other federal grants.
Hall says both anticipating and reacting to a new administration’s funding changes is a normal part of the job for many in violence-prevention outreach. That’s no different under Trump.
“As far as this administration goes, there's a lot of unknowns of what's going to be happening. All I can say is, we've been told that we are — until further notice — to just move forward with the work that we were planning on doing.”
Guest: Christina Hall, director, UNLV’s Care Center
