For decades, the Philadelphia Center Against Sexual Violence, also known as WOAR, Women Organized Against Rape, has stood staunchly by the side of the city’s sexual violence survivors. WOAR staff help survivors testify in courtrooms, hold their hands through forensic exams, and host a 24-hour crisis hotline valued by many. This week, those advocates will have to walk away.
WOAR will pause services and lay off staff on Friday, following state lawmakers’ failure to pass a now three-month-overdue budget, a decision that workers say will reverberate throughout the city and impact the lives of college students who have come to rely on the organization’s free, trauma-informed services.
“These services are vital to the well-being of our most vulnerable populations, and the decision to reduce our staff has been incredibly difficult,” said Joanne Strauss, president of WOAR’s board of directors.
According to WOAR’s own figures, “As of Monday, WOAR has received 1,775 hotline calls, a total of 2,325 new clients, and reached 7,306 school and community members through their prevention and education work in 2025.” That local capacity is being gutted while the state budget remains unconfirmed. Beginning this Friday, survivors who call WOAR’s hotline will instead be rerouted to the national RAINN crisis line, a change staff say will disrupt the continuity of care survivors depend on.
WOAR is the only rape crisis center in Philadelphia and receives 73% of its funding from the Pennsylvania Coalition to Advance Respect, which is funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services. In an interview with The Triangle, WOAR staff emphasized that delayed state funding, coupled with uncertainty about the ultimate amount to be released, forced the organization into the impossible choice of shutting down.
“Even if we got the money tomorrow, we haven’t had that money for four months when we’ve needed it, and we may not have enough or what we expected,” said Isabelle Beatus, a crisis and court advocate. “So even if they passed the budget today, we still would all be laid off and pausing services on the 10th, because our understanding is that it would take a couple of months for the funding to get back to us to start the rehiring process.”
“We’re not being furloughed — we’re being laid off,” shared Carolyn Goode, a sexual assault and domestic violence advocate.
The lapse in funding comes amid a leadership transition: Dr. Indira Henard, DSW, MSW, who had served as WOAR’s executive consultant, recently stepped down, with attorney Gabriella Fontan appointed as the organization’s new executive director.
WOAR’s services extend broadly. Staff describe a constellation of free, specialized programs: bilingual therapy, group therapy, EMDR, art and music therapy, trauma-processing yoga, court advocacy, and prevention work in schools and bars.
“We have our 24-hour hotline that’s coming to a close after the 10th,” said Deva Leach, a court crisis advocate. “We provide a lot of support — we do in-person crisis counseling if folks come in, and a lot of that is to be more accessible to survivors that cannot afford or do not have access to insurance or therapy services.”
At the Philadelphia Sexual Assault Response Center, located adjacent to the Special Victims Unit, WOAR advocates provide critical emotional support during forensic rape exams and police interviews. “We do court advocacy and accompaniment,” said Beatus. “We provide advocacy at both the Criminal Justice Center and family court, and we try to be there with people during interviews when they make a report.”
The shutdown will halt that. “People who are coming in to get rape exams will not have access to emotional support if they can’t bring anyone else,” said Leach. “People having trials or preliminary hearings will not have access to that support. Folks in the middle of trauma processing, an intensive process, are going to have to take a break, and that in itself is really, really hard.”
WOAR serves people spanning generations: children, teens, adults, and seniors.
“We serve any age: as young as kids who can talk, like two years old, to as high as it goes,” said Alex Miller, an intake coordinator. “But who’s going to be impacted the most really are those who are underinsured or uninsured or maybe don’t have income at all. It makes me so sad to think of the many folks that we talk to that don’t have other options.”
Recently, after years of understaffing and long delays for care, WOAR had reached full capacity and successfully cleared its client waitlist. Every person who had been waiting was assigned a therapist or counselor and had begun receiving services, a milestone that made the sudden shutdown even more devastating for staff.
Beyond counseling and crisis response, WOAR also serves as a vital connector within Philadelphia’s network of social services. When a client’s needs extended beyond the organization’s scope, such as emergency housing or domestic violence assistance, advocates often sat down with them to call other agencies like Women Against Abuse and begin intake processes together. Staff say that kind of hands-on coordination, which ensured survivors were never left without direction or care, will now disappear alongside WOAR’s other programs.
For many college students, those services were often the first — and sometimes the only — accessible form of help. According to RAINN, 26.4% of female and 6.8% of male undergraduate students experience rape or sexual assault involving physical force, violence, or incapacitation. Philadelphia’s density of universities means WOAR’s reach into campus life was constant.
“I’ve taken lots of hotline calls from college students,” said Goode. “Philly has so many colleges, and we’re constantly taking calls from students who need support or just need to know where to go for certain situations. I’m very sad thinking about them not having that resource.”
Anyae Tynes, another advocate, added, “I’m even thinking about the amount of college students that I’ve helped at PSARC last week alone — maybe three survivors that came in for exams. A lot of survivors just want to be believed and validated for their experiences. Many aren’t believed by their families, or even through Title IX or the police, and that can turn them away from reporting altogether. Being there to validate them… goes such a long way.”
At Drexel University, the student organization SECRET (Sexual Exploration and Comfort in Restorative Educational Training) developed a close working relationship with WOAR, referring students to the center for support. Founded in 2021 by Georgia Michaels, now a fifth-year psychology major, SECRET emerged when she and a friend noticed a gap on campus.
“My friend and I noticed that there was no real peer-led resource on campus for sexual violence things,” Michaels said. “There’s Title IX, but that’s not really support for survivors. We started by organizing an event with Greek Life, about 200 fraternity and sorority members, to talk about sexual violence prevention. After that, we applied to become an official organization.”
SECRET began hosting workshops on sexual health and wellness, handing out free condoms and emergency contraception, and bringing WOAR speakers to campus.
WOAR’s Safe Bars program trains Philadelphia bar staff to prevent and respond to sexual harassment and assault, something Michaels said directly affected Drexel students. “It’s especially significant to Drexel students who might be going out to these bars,” she said. “Knowing they’ve gotten training on what to do if something happens makes you feel safer overall.”
With WOAR’s services paused, that safety net disappears. “All students going out and partying in Center City or the surrounding areas will miss out on that now,” Michaels said. “If the bars don’t uphold that, there’s nobody holding them to those standards.”
This loss is deeply personal to WOAR staff. “It just breaks all of our hearts to think of any of our clients not having the support we’ve been offering for so long,” said Miller. “It’s heartbreaking to picture those situations without the support we provide.”
Miller described speaking with survivors who “have just been through more horrific stuff than a lot of people can imagine,” including children as young as four.
“They come to us with so much hope because they know WOAR is the place where they can actually talk about this and heal,” she said. “What’s going to happen to those four-year-olds? Those teens? The adults who don’t have other options?”
Goode shared one courtroom moment that has stayed with her: “A man in Center City was charged in a grotesque groping and sexual assault situation involving many women. So many survivors showed up to testify that day. I got to watch them tell their stories in front of their perpetrator… They were stronger than they realized.”
Leach recalled holding the hands of teenage survivors during forensic exams. “We’ve sat through those exams, helped people advocate for themselves before they talk to police, made sure they’re as comfortable as possible. To know that people will no longer have that emotional support through all stages of the process is really difficult,” she said.
For survivors who can’t afford transportation, WOAR even provided free rides. “SVU is located in North Philly, which is a little more out of the way,” Leach said. “We provide free Ubers to people coming in for forensic exams. That’s a huge barrier removed. And we’ll no longer be there for that.”
The absence of WOAR’s trauma-informed approach, staff warn, will have lasting consequences for survivors and the city as a whole. Many of the systems survivors must navigate, such as police departments, hospitals, and courts, are not designed with trauma care in mind. WOAR advocates served as the buffer between survivors and those institutions.
“Without us, people will be retraumatized and put in situations where they think they’re the problem, not the system,” Beatus explained.
The shutdown will also put heavy strain on Pennsylvania’s already overburdened network of service providers. Other local organizations, which are also short-staffed and managing long waitlists, will suddenly face an influx of clients who can no longer turn to WOAR. Advocates fear that this domino effect will leave many survivors without timely access to any trauma-informed resources at all.
This comes at an alarming time: Philadelphia has reported 410 rapes in 2025 to date, an 11.4% increase from the previous year.
WOAR staff and student activists are focused on immediate advocacy to press the legislature. “I think mainly right now we’re focused on at least raising awareness to getting this budget passed,” said Leach. “Without this budget being passed, we’ll pause services indefinitely and have no idea when we’ll be back.”
Miller urged residents to take action. “Call your representatives. Let them know that there are real consequences to not passing this budget.”
“We’re not just numbers, our clients are not just numbers. These are integral, life-changing services that need to be funded.”
SECRET has already begun mobilizing students. “We started a social media campaign to spread awareness about what’s going on with WOAR,” Michaels said. “We want as many Drexel students to find this as much of an issue as any other social cause we’ve rallied together on.”
At the heart of the crisis are the individuals who have dedicated their time to helping countless survivors heal. “It’s just so hard for all of us to sit here and think about this,” said Miller. “Because we really do care so much, and love what we do.”
Until Pennsylvania lawmakers confirm a budget, that care will have to wait, along with the thousands of survivors, students, and families who find solace on the other end of WOAR’s line. Beginning this Friday, WOAR’s many services will pause indefinitely.