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Welcome back. Well, we've seen a recent uptick in crime. In Stockton, 43 murders alone this
year. In Sacramento, a Sac State alumni and a dance instructor gunned downtown, in midtown.
What about the victims of these assaults or witnesses to these crimes, who will struggle
for years with those images that they have in mind. Or they'll have mounting medical
bills, counseling. There's a little known program called the California Victim Compensation
Program that's helping those victims and right now, Julie Nauman, you're with that group.
Tell us what this is. Well, thank you for inviting me to be with you this morning and
share a little bit about this really important program. It's called the California Victim
Compensation Program and it is a program that's available to anyone who has been a victim
of a violent crime. And what we do is we provide assistance to these victims in the form of
financial assistance to help them with the bills that invariable mount up as a result
of being a victim of a violent crime. So we're able to help with things like mental health
counseling, or medical expenses, depending on what happened. And we're there for people
who don't have anyplace else to turn, who don't have insurance that will cover this.
Or even if they have insurance, we can cover the copays. And why do you think this is so
little known. There were some people we were telling about we were going to be having this
interview, who tweeted "I really want to hear bout this." I think people who are victims
of crime obviously are traumatized and they don't really know where to turn. And so, one
of the reasons I wanted to be here this morning was to let people know that this program exists
and hopefully you never need it. But if you do or if you know someone who's been a victim
of crime, this program is there to help and all it takes is a phone call, or check us
out on our website. Now, we talked earlier as well about sometimes people go through
these traumatic occasions and don't realize that they need the help. Is there a time limit
on when they can come to you for this? Under the terms of the program, people are asked
to apply within one year of the incident. And so, most times, people are interacting
with police or with other first responders and they can learn about the program that
way and then make their application. We also have a partnership with district attorney
offices throughout the state and they provide assistance to victims as well. So there are
many ways to get in touch with the program. Just in hearing about this and in hearing
about a lot of the violent crimes that we're seeing lately, is there a limit to this? It
seems like you would be shelling out a lot of money here. Well, we do and it's fortunate
that we do have the resources. But one of the things I think is really interesting about
this program is the resources that we depend upon, the financial resources that we have
to help people, doesn't come from taxpayer money as many other programs do. It actually
comes from the payments that convicted offenders pay, in a sense their debt to society. So
at the time their sentenced, the court says "You owe this amount of money" and we benefit
from that and that's how we fund the services. Well, wonderful. I know a lot of people did
not know about this and can greatly benefit from this. We will put all that information
on Go button and let you know if you need that or you know someone who does need that
service, you'll know where to go. We'll get the phone number out there as well. If you
need more information about the California Victim Compensation Program, you can pick
up the phone. It's 800-777-9229 and you can go to Fox40.com, click the go button. We'll
get you the info that way as well.