Photo by: John Dixon/The News-Gazette Amy Williams, marketing and outreach coordinator of RACES (Rape Advocacy, Counseling, and Education Services) explains cutbacks at the organization, standing in front of the organization's original logo, in the RACES office in Urbana on Thursday May 12, 2016.

URBANA — After nearly a year without money from the state, the rape crisis center in Urbana is being forced to suspend nearly all its services and lay off its five remaining employees at the end of the month.

What will remain available for victims of sexual assault, domestic violence, abuse and harassment served by the nonprofit Rape Advocacy Counseling and Education Services agency will be just its 24-hour crisis intervention service, its leaders said.

That service is a 24-hour crisis line staffed by trained volunteers.

Ending on June 1 will be all counseling, legal advocacy and community education, according to Amy Williams, marketing and outreach coordinator.

The 24-hour crisis line will continue with some help from the United Way of Champaign County, which is providing enough money to hire a part-time volunteer coordinator, a job that may be filled by a current staff member, she said.

RACES has been without $200,000 in state funding for the year since the state budget impasse, and has already made cutbacks to keep its door open.

"We did expect to have money to stay at the capacity we were at for much longer," Williams said.

By taking this drastic step now, she said, agency leaders are hoping to be able to have enough resources to rebuild when the state budget impasse ends. For now, RACES is meeting its rent obligation at Lincoln Square, Urbana, "but we, of course, welcome community support of any kind," she said.

Sue Grey, president and CEO of the local United Way, said the $25,000 in funding to pay for the volunteer coordinator is coming from the United Way's emergency money set aside to help its agency partners in times of crisis.

"This year it's been tapped more than usual because of the state budget issue," she said. "But this is something we felt very strongly about, because we think it needs to be in our community," she said of the RACES crisis intervention service.

As RACES prepares to wind down, a list of community resources has been provided on its website and staff members have been calling clients to let them know about the services that are ending, Williams said.

"We are working as hard as we can to make sure we are matching people up with other community agencies," she said. "Some community agencies have volunteered to take some of our clients."

But she also said RACES provides something that will be difficult for a lot of clients to find elsewhere — free unlimited counseling.

"The reality is, once we are gone and we are not able to make those connections any more, it will be much more difficult for survivors of sexual assault to find those services," she said.

While the free counseling will no longer be available, Williams said the crisis intervention line does provide volunteers who are highly trained and "it's someone to listen."

RACES leaders expressed thanks to the donors who have been contributing money to help keep the agency open through this fiscal year, and said all future donations will help pay existing debts and ongoing operational expenses and will be put toward future rebuilding.

Know your RACES:

4: How many counties this rape crisis center serves, including Champaign, Douglas, Ford and Piatt.

37,408-plus: How many people, ages 3 through adult, it helped last year.

2009: When RACES was founded, the daughter organization of the Rape Crisis Center founded in the 1970s.