They say Maryland is a state of compassion. They say crime victims, especially women trapped in cycles of exploitation, will be protected. But as I’ve seen firsthand, and as HER Resiliency Center is now publicly demanding, those promises die quietly in Annapolis at the hands of bureaucrats who seem more concerned with formatting errors than with human suffering.
Dorothy J. Lennig, Esq not only leaves people behind breaking the governor's oath to the people of Maryland, but she's vile and recalcitrant in her contempt for women in trouble. She's willing to let them suffer to make her life more interesting and more fun. How can the governor allow somebody who relishes hurting women continue in a role that's supposed to help women?
Natasha Guynes and her team at HER Resiliency Center do not offer theoretical help. They get women off the street. They intervene when no one else will, when a woman is high, scared, bruised, trafficked, or bleeding out emotionally from years of abuse. HER gives her cotton leggings because she’s been attacked, not because it fits a budget line. HER buys a wastebasket so she can walk into a clean space and begin the long, brutal climb to sobriety and self-worth. The Governor’s Office of Crime Prevention and Policy (GOCPP) responded to these acts of compassion not with support, but with audits, reversals, denials, and bureaucratic games of ping pong that have brought HER to the brink of collapse.
HER didn’t break any rules. In fact, they complied at every turn. But GOCPP moved the goalposts seven times in four months, then retroactively changed its interpretation of reimbursement eligibility, leaving HER out $40,000 it already spent in good faith. This is sabotage dressed up in procedural language.
I’ve met these women. I’ve seen their courage. And now I’m watching that courage get crushed by incompetence from staffers who wouldn’t last a week in the field.
This isn’t isolated. A statewide survey found dozens of victim service organizations facing the same slow bleed: arbitrary rule changes, last-minute denials, contradictory guidance, and staff turnover that forces nonprofits into chaos. It’s not oversight—it’s dereliction.
Governor Wes Moore has rightly elevated the cause of protecting vulnerable women. But if his own office doesn’t intercede, then all that rhetoric is worthless. It’s time for Moore to clean house. The staffers running GOCPP have turned a vital agency into a gatekeeping maze where paperwork triumphs over victims, and service organizations are punished for doing their jobs.
If Brooke Lierman’s office is serious about oversight, they should start here. If the Governor’s office is serious about compassion, they should fix it, now. Maryland’s nonprofits deserve clarity, not crisis. HER deserves funding, not furloughs. And Maryland’s women deserve better than being victimized twice—once by their abusers, and again by their government.
Is this the non profit that took the women to New York to see a Broadway show? I agree we need to help but only with essentials. If they want to go to NY hold a bake sale, raise the money. It is time these non profits are held accountable.