By CHRISTOPHER AADLAND
While the Violence Against Women Act doesn't expire until 2018, victim advocates and attorneys are pushing for more changes to made to the law when its reauthorization comes up.
Victim advocates and county and city attorneys offered their views at a roundtable discussion Monday with Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vermont, at Minneapolis' Harriet Tubman Center.
The advocates and attorneys said they'd like to see some modifications — which mostly involved additional funding — to the act, like access to affordable housing for battered women, child protection needs, additional legal assistance, addressing prevention and lingering concerns over domestic violence among American Indians, among others.
"We have the reauthorization coming up," Klobuchar said at the event. She said it was important to hear "from all of you who are on the frontline doing the work so we can figure out what changes we can make to make the bill even better."
Klobuchar and Leahy sit on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
At the event, Lolita Ulloa, managing attorney of the Hennepin County Domestic Abuse Service Center, said more funding is needed to help provide abused women and families with housing after they leave abusive partners since they are then often left without any or little financial support.
"Last week alone, three times, we were looking for funding for somebody to just move to a safer home," she said. "The funding for that … is not available."