Louisiana

Domestic violence shelter funding cut in Gov. Jeff Landry’s budget plan – Louisiana Illuminator

Published

2 years ago

February 25, 2024

Domestic violence shelter funding cut in Gov. Jeff Landry’s budget plan – Louisiana Illuminator

Gov. Jeff Landry’s proposed state budget slashes funding for domestic violence victims by millions of dollars starting July 1, even as the governor says crime victims and public safety are his top priority.

State and federal funding for domestic violence shelters could go from $14.6 million in the current fiscal year to just $6.2 million in the next cycle, according to advocates for domestic violence victims. It would be the lowest level of funding for the shelters since Gov. Bobby Jindal was in office 10 years ago.

If the cut goes through, the Louisiana Coalition Against Domestic Violence will have to pull back on plans to add more shelter beds across the state. It would put the brakes on opening up five new shelters and expanding six of 16 existing facilities, executive director Mariah Stidham Wineski said.

“The new shelters that are opening will shut down,” Wineski said.

Domestic violence is one of the largest public safety issues facing Louisiana. In 2020, the state had the fifth highest female homicide rate in the country. More than half of women victims that year were killed by an intimate partner, according to the Violence Policy Center.

It’s unclear what led the Landry administration to propose a cut to funding for domestic violence shelters. The governor’s office has not responded to a question about why the money was removed. A spokeswoman for the Department of Children and Family Services, where much of the funding is housed, declined to comment.

Most of the cut, $7 million, came from the removal of state money the Louisiana Senate added for shelters in 2023. Wineski and other advocates said lawmakers told them the funding increase would be ongoing and baked into the family welfare budget for years to come.

But when Landry took office in January, he stripped down the state spending plan in preparation for a significant financial downturn next year. He took out money for dozens of programs legislators added in 2023, including for domestic violence shelters, higher education and economic development.

Landry and lawmakers will face annual budget shortfalls of over half a billion dollars after a 0.45% state sales expires in 2025. The governor said he wants to start limiting state spending this year to make it easier to deal with smaller, leaner budgets in the future.

Yet Landry isn’t sparing any expense when it comes to other public safety measures he is personally pushing.

State lawmakers are swiftly moving a package of Landry’s bills through a special session on crime. They are expected to add millions of dollars in prison expenses each year by lengthening the time incarcerated people stay behind bars.

At the same time, domestic violence shelters face reductions in funding, the governor has asked lawmakers to approve approximately $10 million more for a new state police troop for New Orleans and $3 million to send Louisiana National Guard members to the Texas border with Mexico over the next four months.

Landry said he is pushing these changes to benefit crime victims, but advocates for domestic violence shelters wonder why then their organizations haven’t been made a budget priority alongside state police and prisons.

“Every single person we are serving is a victim of crime,” said Julie Pellegrin, executive director of The Haven, a domestic violence shelter that serves Terrebonne, Lafourche and Assumption parishes.

A 2021 investigation by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor concluded the state desperately needed more shelter beds for domestic violence victims. Louisiana’s 16 shelters had a total of 389 spaces, while Louisiana had an average of 2,700 unmet requests for shelter beds every year.

The audit noted no domestic violence shelter exists in central Louisiana, even though Rapides Parish had the 10th highest number of protective orders issued in the state in 2020.

Wineski has been able to open a shelter in Iberia Parish after receiving a small boost in federal funding from the state a few years ago. The funding increase last year was expected to take shelter bed capacity around the state from around 390 to at least 600 slots, she said.

New facilities had been planned or recently opened in Livingston, Lafourche, St. Tammany, Caddo and Avoyelles parishes. The Avoyelles location would have helped fill the shelter gap in central Louisiana.

“Domestic violence shelters do keep people alive,” Wineski said.

Iris Domestic Violence Center in Baton Rouge is one of the domestic violence shelters that received more state funding this year. (Julie O’Donoghue/Louisiana Illuminator)

At The Haven in Houma, Pellegrin used the extra state money to open up shelter beds and provide outreach services to remote portions of Assumption, Lafourche and Terrebonne.

A parent can be reluctant to leave an abusive relationship if it means they have to cross parish lines and send their children to a different school, she said. By having more locations, her organization can reach more people.

This year’s funding increase is the first hike in state support The Haven had seen in more tha 10 years, Pellegrin said. If Landry cuts that funding in the next cycle, she’ll have to close some of the satellite locations she only recently opened.

The Haven’s emergency shelter operates at near total capacity yearound already.

“When you make that phone call [to get help from a domestic shelter], you may have to wait,” she said.

In the Baton Rouge region, Iris Domestic Violence Center was using the money this year to expand its shelter capacity and provide children’s programming.

Construction is already underway on playrooms, study areas and a teen library at Iris. Executive director Patti Joy Freeman also hopes to add a music room to the facility with donated instruments for children.

Freeman said programs for children and teens are as important as what is offered to the adult victims. Teenagers in abusive families often take on a lot of responsibility helping raise younger children and need space of their own.

All children also need counseling and programming to ensure the familial cycle of violence is broken, according to Freeman. Those types of resources are crime prevention tools because they help keep domestic violence at bay.

But Freeman won’t have the resources to open the new children programs at Iris if state funding for domestic violence shelters gets cut next year. She won’t be able to afford the extra staff and utilities needed to run the program.

“I have to be a good steward with our money,” she said.

Before coming to Iris, Freeman oversaw domestic violence investigations for the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office. A former law enforcement officer, she considers shelters and their programs to be essential to fighting crime. Some victims feel comfortable coming to a shelter for help long before they are willing to interact with police, she said.

“Why are we wondering why these statistics don’t go down when we only have 16 shelters with wraparound services?” she said.

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Louisiana

Louisiana considers opening recreational alligator hunting season

Published

9 hours ago

March 11, 2026

Press Room

Louisiana considers opening recreational alligator hunting season

Louisiana lawmakers are considering a bill to create a recreational alligator hunting season.
The proposed season would be open to 5,000 lottery-selected hunters annually, with a two-gator limit.
Louisiana’s wild alligator population has grown to over 2 million, a significant conservation success.
Recreational hunters would be limited to using a hook and line from land.

Louisiana may expand its wild alligator harvesting opportunities to recreational hunters if the Legislature passes a bill that secured unanimous approval in a committee hearing March 11.

Franklin state Sen. Robert Allain’s Senate Bill 244 would authorize the Louisiana Wildlife Commission to create a recreational season that would be open to 5,000 hunters annually, each with a two-gator limit.

The state already has a commercial hunting season for alligators, which is chronicled in the popular “Swamp People” TV reality series.

“We think the time is right,” Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries Secretary Tyler Bosworth testified during the Senate Natural Resources Committee hearing. “We want to provide a recreational opportunity for the common folk of Louisiana.”

Louisiana’s alligator population has exploded in the past 50 years from fewer than 100,000 to more than 3 million today. Of those, about 2 million are wild with another 1 million farmed.

That’s at least twice the population in Florida, the state with the second most number of alligators.

And their Louisiana numbers have grown throughout the state where they can be commonly spotted from Lake Martin in Breaux Bridge to Caddo and Cross lakes in Shreveport to Caldwell Parish in northeastern Louisiana.

“This is a conservation success story on the highest level,” LDWF general counsel Garrett Cole said during the hearing. “This would create a true recreational opportunity outside our commercial season.”

Garrett said hunters would compete for hunting tags through a lottery will statewide opportunities. Recreational hunters would be limited to hook and line harvesting from land. No gators could be taken by boat as commercial hunters are allowed to do.

If approved, the first season could take place beginning Oct. 1.

Greg Hilburn covers state politics for the USA TODAY Network of Louisiana. Follow him on Twitter @GregHilburn1.

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Louisiana

How a sinkhole caused a whirlpool and formed Louisiana’s deepest lake

Published

21 hours ago

March 11, 2026

Press Room

How a sinkhole caused a whirlpool and formed Louisiana’s deepest lake

While Louisiana’s largest lake, the Toledo Bend Reservoir, spans 1,200 miles of shoreline, the state’s deepest lake only spans 1,125 acres.

Lake Peigneur is the deepest lake in Louisiana, with a depth measuring approximately 200 feet.

Lake Peigneur is a brackish lake, meaning it contains saltwater but has less salinity than seawater, located in New Iberia Parish in South Louisiana.

How did Lake Peigneur become the deepest lake in Louisiana?

Lake Peigneur was not always considered the deepest lake in Louisiana, as it was only a 10-foot-deep freshwater lake 40 years ago.

On Nov. 20, 1980, an oil rig crew was attempting to free a 14-inch drill bit when they heard popping noises and the rig began to tilt. Shortly after the crew abandoned the rig and headed for shore, the crew watched the 150-foot oil rig disappear into the 10-foot-deep lake.

Soon, a whirlpool formed in place of the oil rig. The whirlpool grew rapidly until it was able to suck up nearby boats, barges, trees, a house and half an island.

At the same location of the oil drilling site, there was also a salt mine, and when the whirlpool formed after the oil rig collapsed, the mine began to fill with water. As the whirlpool grew, water was able to enter the mine at such a force that it caused a geyser to spew out of the mine’s opening for hours until the lake was drained.

After the lake was emptied, the Delcambre Canal began to flow backward, marking the only time in history that the Gulf of Mexico flowed into the continental U.S. This backflow continued until the entire mine and lake were filled with water, except now the lake was filled with saltwater, according to an article published on Louisiana Tech Digital Commons.

Can you swim in Lake Peigneur?

Before the oil rig and salt mine accident, Lake Peigneur was a popular spot for fishing and recreational activities. However, since the lake is almost entirely surrounded by private property, visitors will have to enter the nearby Rip Van Winkle Gardens in order to get a closer look, according to Atlas Obscura.

While there are no reports indicating the lake is unsafe, the lake is not exactly developed for public access. However, there are things to do around Lake Peigneur, like visiting Rip Van Winkle Gardens on Jefferson Island, or visiting Avery Island to tour the Tabasco Factory.

Presley Bo Tyler is a reporter for the Louisiana Deep South Connect Team for USA Today. Find her on X @PresleyTyler02 and email at PTyler@Gannett.com

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Louisiana

Officials confirm Pensacola Beach residue is algae, not oil from Louisiana spill

Published

1 day ago

March 10, 2026

Press Room

Officials confirm Pensacola Beach residue is algae, not oil from Louisiana spill

PENSACOLA BEACH, Fla. — A local fisherman raised concerns about the substance now coating Opal Beach, citing a recent oil spill off the coast of Louisiana.

WEAR News went to officials with the Gulf Islands National Seashore and Escambia County to find out the cause.

They say it’s not related to an oil spill, but is in fact algae.

The Marine Resources Division says they can understand beachgoers’ concerns, and hope to raise awareness.

“You don’t even want to get near it because it’s so gooey and sticky,” local fisherman Larry Grossman said. “It was accumulating on my beach cart wheels yesterday, and it felt like an oil product.”

Grossman messaged WEAR News on Monday after noticing something brown and oozy in the sand. He says it started showing up by Fort Pickens and stretched down to Opal Beach.

Grossman said a park service employee told him it could be oil from a recent spill in Louisiana. So he took a message to social media, sparking some reactions and raising questions.

“it certainly didn’t seem like an algae bloom because I was in the water, I caught a fish and I put some water in the cooler to keep my fish cool and it almost looked like oil in it,” Grossman said. “I know some people think it’s an algae bloom, but it certainly smelled and felt and looked like oil.”

A Gulf Islands National Seashore spokesperson confirmed to WEAR News on Tuesday that the substance is algae.

WEAR News crews were at the beach as officials with the Escambia County Marines Resources Division came out take samples.

“What I found here washed up on the beach is some algae — filamentous algae, single celled algae — that washed ashore in some onshore winds,” said Robert Turpin, Escambia County Marines Resources Division manager. “This is the spring season, so with additional sunlight, our plants, they grow in warmer waters, with plenty of sunlight.”

Turpin says this algae is not harmful.

He also addressed the concerns that this could be oil, saying he’s familiar with what oil spills look like.

He says he appreciates when people like Grossman raise the concerns.

“The last thing in the world we want is something to gain traction on social media that is faults in nature that could harm our tourism,” Turpin said. “Our tourism is very important to our economy, and we want to give the right information out to the public so we all enjoy the beaches and enjoy them safely.”

Turpin says if you see something or suspect something may be harmful on the beach, avoid it and contact Escambia County Marine Resources.

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