T’sharin Moncrief sat on a powder keg during Hurricane Katrina, trapped at home with a volatile and drug-addicted partner during the storm.

“A week ago, I had a dream . . . I was in a car and he was chasing me,” Moncrief said recently adding she’s usually too busy to be triggered. The downtime of a stay-at-home order allows for hours of thinking and brings up issues she hadn’t addressed.

She said she couldn’t imagine the same situation while being isolated during the coronavirus pandemic with no clear ending in sight.

She founded and directs Women of Refined Gold, Inc., an organization in Montgomery that serves victims of domestic violence. Outreach events, education projects, in person support group meetings and awareness campaigns are on hold with social distancing.

Services for domestic violence victims nationwide are increasingly being provided over the phone. Many victims who need a safe place to escape to, won’t find resources as easily before the coronavirus pandemic. Many offices are closed or only allowing critical personnel to continue working.

Staff members of the courts, where victims seek protection orders and/or criminal charges, are operating on skeleton crews as per the required shut down. By mid-March, the Alabama Supreme Court suspended all in-person court hearings in the state for a month to help curb the spread of coronavirus.

More:Coronavirus: Alabama Supreme Court suspends most court hearings

Exceptions to the shutdown include abuse and emergency protection but getting a judge to issue an order has still been a challenge. Montgomery County Deputy District Attorney Marianalyn Dennis oversees the Violence Against Women Prosecution Unit. She said circuit court is still moving steadily with teleconferencing, while district court is at a standstill.

Prosecutors are left unarmed with social distancing that strips them of the ability to convince victims their testimony is important in holding offenders accountable. Negotiation and establishing trust aren’t easy over the phone or through e-mail.

Even pre-pandemic, many offenders left court with a mild reprimand if a victim refused to testify. By the time a domestic violence case goes in front of a judge, many victims don’t want to participate in prosecution proceedings. Victims might be scared and prefer not to take the stand to tell their traumatic story again.

Prosecution is a challenge without victim testimony and Dennis anticipated the problem will get worse with extended delays between filing charges and going to court. It’s hard to avoid cases dragging out for more than a year with the amount of charges filed. Dennis said she sees roughly 100 domestic violence cases per month and there will be at least a two-month backlog in trials with the shutdown.

With the economic impact of the pandemic, abusive relationships may be harder to leave when many victims are financially dependent on abusive partners. Dennis said she foresees an increase in victims staying or returning to abusive partners without the resources to leave.

“My fear is, with this going on, a lot of these cases are going to go unreported,” Dennis said.

Carol Gunlock former-Executive Director of the Alabama Coalition Against Domestic Violence compared the pandemic experience for domestic violence victims to victims' experience during the recession, saying it was much more difficult to get jobs and leave shelters to re-establish their lives.

“Through the recession you saw a similar situation to what we’re seeing now. I think that for domestic violence victims the economic implications of this are going to be much greater,” Gunlock said. “It’s not that poverty causes domestic violence, batterers cause it . . . but we’re going to see an increase in poverty and unemployment and that will disproportionately impact victims.”

Since the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, the federal government has awarded more than $8 billion in grants to local, state and tribal governments to establish and develop services for victims of domestic violence, stalking, and sexual assault. But, the law expired in February and has not been reauthorized by Congress.

One Place Family Justice Center is still open for victims and offers case management, legal services and sexual assault exams in a 10 county service area that includes Montgomery County. Executive Director Marjorie Baker said One Place saw 68 new clients in March, not including sexual assault victims. There were 29 sexual assault victims in March. Of the 29, four were children. The Montgomery Police Department partners with One Place Family Justice Center to help victims.

The week of March 15 to 21, the MPD received 21 more reports of domestic violence than they did the same time last year and 8 more reports than they did the week before.

For non-English speaking victims of domestic violence, help can be especially difficult.

The Asian Pacific Institute of Gender-Based Violence, the National Resource for Reaching Victims, Casa de Esperanza and National Latin@ Network are having a national listening session at 1 p.m. April 9 on supporting limited proficient English speakers and immigrant survivors during the pandemic.

“Limited English proficient survivors, immigrant and refugee survivors often experience higher rates of victimization. During the COVID-19 crisis we're hearing about new challenges affecting our communities and the victim service providers working with them,” a notice reads. “ . . . Social distancing might increase rates of violence, hate crimes in Asian communities are on the rise and many immigrants won't receive support or healthcare during this crisis.”

Lawyers and law enforcement reach out to the Alabama-Korea Education & Economic Partnership on occasion for domestic violence and sexual assault cases. Executive Director of A-Keep, Meesoon Han, is bilingual and was a certified court interpreter.

“We have developed a program called our A-KEEP hotline to offer free translation and interpretation services to community members in situations ranging from domestic violence cases to interpreting for parent-teacher-conferences," said A-Keep creative media coordinator, Christa Springs. "However, without local support from our legislator or donation community, it is not possible to keep the program open consistently. We aim to have this program fully funded so that these services may be available to all indefinitely,”

Domestic violence and sexual assault victims can reach One Place Family Justice Center at (334) 262-7378. The Domestic Abuse Crisis Line is (334) 263-0218. The Alabama Coalition Against Domestic Violence hotline is 1-800-650-6522.

Victims of sexual assault can call STAR 24-Hour Crisis Line at (334) 213-1227.

Sara MacNeil can be reached at smacneil@montgome.gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter.