U.S. Senator John Barrasso and the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs have introduced a bill to help Native American tribes get better access to federal funds meant to help crime victims. In the last five years, tribes have received less than one percent of the federal victims’ funding available, even as crimes like homicide and sexual assault continue to rise on reservations.

Indian Affairs Committee Staff Director Mike Andrews says the problem is that tribes have to compete for grants on a national scale. The bill is known as the SURVIVE Act or Securing Urgent Resources Vital to Indian Victim Empowerment Act. It would allow tribes to compete for money only against other tribes. And they could hire grant writers.

“Statistically, violence in Indian Country is at its all-time highest,” Andrews says. “And the innocent victims, the folks that are having these crimes perpetrated against them, we asked ourselves, where’s the relief?”

Andrews says the funds would also be distributed by the Interior Department, instead of states or the Department of Justice, allowing the feds to funnel money directly to tribes.

“It’s the tribes and the Department of Interior that will be working on the distribution amount. And really cutting the red tape of going through the Department of Justice or the states. So we know that money will go directly to the communities instead of going second and third hand.”

He says tribes could also have greater choice in how to use their grant money, whether for victim counseling, more safe shelters, or sexual assault nurse's training. He says the bill has broad bipartisan support with 10 out of the 14 committee members in support. It now moves to the House and Senate for approval.