In early 2025, the Trump administration terminated a $500,000 Department of Justice grant to San Francisco's Asian Women's Shelter (SFAWS) — effective immediately, with no warning and no detailed explanation.

The only reason given: the shelter's programs no longer aligned with the administration's priorities.

Those priorities, as spelled out in a terse email viewed by The 19th, were "supporting certain law enforcement operations, combatting violent crime, protecting American children." What wasn't on that list: LGBTQ+ survivors. Immigrant survivors. Arab and Muslim women. The people SFAWS was specifically funded to serve.

SFAWS has been helping survivors of domestic violence for more than 30 years. It runs the only LGBTQ+-specific domestic violence program in San Francisco, one of a handful in the entire country. Its 24/7 crisis hotline operates in over 40 languages and answers 1,100 calls a year. Two-thirds of its clients are families with children.

The shelter appealed the grant termination within the required 30 days. Months later, there has been no response. Now additional federal housing funds are at risk. If those disappear, SFAWS would have to lay off staff, shutter its youth violence prevention program, and lose the ability to house 45 clients and their dependents, people with nowhere else to go.

This is what it looks like when federal funding becomes a political weapon. Survivors are paying the price.

Sign this petition to demand the Department of Justice restore SFAWS's funding now.