well some Advocates are calling for more help from the government to curb Rising rates of domestic violence Bergen County Center for Hope and safety is reporting an 80 percent increase in calls last year to the 24 7 domestic violence hotline not only that the organization says it helped an unprecedented number of domestic violence survivors find shelter and legal representation executive director Julie Myner says her team is now serving 91 percent more clients than it did just 10 years ago she joins me now when we're talking about an increase like 80 percent year over year what does that look like for your Center we are serving more people now than we have ever served in the organization's history it's a significant demand a lot of people who are in danger living in abusive homes who need to have a safe place to live we have expanded our safe house operations which used to be approximately 30 35 people on any given day at one location to now serving close to 170 individuals in five different locations increase occurred rapidly throughout the pandemic and has reached its height in January so you have people who are calling both for help and for shelter how are you meeting that demand yes we have Consolidated our efforts by bringing team members from other departments to help in our Safe House program we are also trying to add on to our staffing to be able to meet that demand and also the state of New Jersey has been very supportive in helping us get the resources that we need to provide that level of support especially the housing component how should we process numbers like this I mean is it a matter of the fact that incidents are going up or that more people are simply reaching out for help is it both I believe it is both the pandemic had been a perfect perfect storm for domestic abuse the stress of the pandemic itself on your loved one's help created a stressor that in itself tends to increase domestic abuse the isolation was another component to allow the abuser to control victims even more and then a few months into the pandemic we saw a lot of women leave the workforce thus women became more dependent on their abusers and less likely to leave and again providing abusers more control then thirdly we saw an increase in gun sales throughout our nation and we know that when there's a gun present in the home that femicide increases by about 500 percent so the risks escalated the dependents escalate the control as well creating a very difficult situation for victims to cope with to keep themselves safe and also additional barriers to leaving now as the pandemic progressed more women and their children have been able to reach out for help have been able to connect with our counselors by calling our hotline to better understand their specific situations and deciding whether or not it was time for them to leave and to take the steps to do so very carefully with our team members including our attorneys to address custody issues spousal support restraining orders so that safety would be embedded within the exit strategy very I mean obviously a very serious situation there are unprecedented numbers um Julie Myner executive director at the center for Hope and safety in Bergen County thank you so much thank you Briana [Music]