Crowd Urges Senate to Fund Programs

Hundreds showed up to speak about the importance of funding for family services, Medicaid, the developmentally disabled, higher education, housing, health care, the elderly, conservation, job creation, and so on.

Jo Fonda of Amherst came to speak her mind. Underfunding certain programs, she said, can have life-or-death consequences.

Fonda told the Senate Finance Committee of her harrowing experience with domestic violence during a public hearing Thursday on the proposed $11 billion state budget. She recounted how–after a series of disturbing events about a dozen years ago–she felt she and her daughter were in imminent danger from her abusive husband. She had the means to escape and hide, and money for a lawyer to help obtain a restraining order. Not all domestic victims are so lucky, she said.

"In order to get help, the majority of victims contact their local domestic and sexual violence program. In New Hampshire, these programs fall under the New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. I wish I could say that was the end of the story and that we were able to go our separate ways," Fonda said. "Instead, my husband hunted me down for two days, and in a rage, unable to find me and having been served the restraining order, he flew our private airplane into our newly built home in Amherst, burning it to the ground and killing himself in the process."

Fond urged senators to generously fund domestic violence programs. In New Hampshire, she said, an estimated 50 percent of homicides are related to domestic violence.

John Cantin of Manchester also asked lawmakers to fund domestic violence prevention programs. In his testimony, Cantin recalled the death of his daughter, Melissa, who was killed by a domestic violence abuser. He previously worked with legislators on a recent law to make strangulation a felony level offense.

"I cannot imagine how hopeless a victim would feel if they were not able to receive emergency housing because the shelters were full or they were not able to get assistance at the court or hospital because an advocate was not available," Cantin said in his remarks delivered to the committee. "No other family should lose a loved one the way we did."

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