Lafayette s Faith House saw a 70% increase in service requests during lockdown
Even while the state was facing a public health emergency in the form of COVID-19, there was a shadow pandemic behind closed doors during the lockdown.
Lafayette s Faith House saw a 70% increase in the number of people seeking domestic violence services during 2020 s COVID-19 lockdown, according to data from Crystal Scrantz, the organization s assistant director.
Faith House also saw an increase in the severity of cases. Many of the survivors reported that the abuse had been verbal, emotional, or had episodes of extreme control before the pandemic. These individuals were coming in with injuries from being severely beaten as their first physical incident, Scrantz said in a statement provided through a spokesperson. We saw many cases in which the escalation of abuse was extremely quick.