Missing Persons Center often their only hope
Hurricane Katrina ushered in death and destruction when it hit in 2005.
The disaster also scattered families -- creating one of the biggest missing-persons dilemmas in U.S. history.
To help connect the missing with their loved ones, the U.S. Justice Department turned to two agencies created years earlier by Congress: The National Center for Missing Adults and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.
"The department recognized a need to utilize current resources to expedite our response in the area," Acting Assistant Attorney General Cybele K. Daley told the Sun-Times.
The government asked Kym Pasqualini, founder of the adults group, what the cost on her end might be. Her guess: $50,000.
"I figured maybe, what, 1,000 cases? I said it would be based on the number of calls. But there was no way you could assess how catastrophic it really was," she recalled.
The organization ended up deluged with 13,502 missing adult cases, 99 percent of which ended up resolved.
Similarly, the group for missing kids logged 5,192 reports, 98 percent of which were cleared.
Now Pasqualini's group -- based in Arizona and considered a valuable clearinghouse for families and police -- risks vanishing, for lack of funding.
"Until NCMA, there wasn't any help for us -- nothing," said Addison resident Shelia Vojack, whose father disappeared in Knoxville, Tenn., on Sept. 17, 1999. He was found, dead, 10 months later.
"There wasn't any liaison for families. That really got me. You're just hanging. Police don't update you. . . . What are we asking for? Not a lot, to give families of missing adults something to hang on to," she said.
The group was created in 2000 when missing adult cases were on an uptick and families in high-profile cases clamored for advocacy. But federal funding has plummeted to $148,000 in '06 from $1.5 million in '02.
Supporters of the group say the funding crisis is part of a larger problem: Missing adults are considered low priority, by lawmakers, law enforcement, the media and the public.
The Web site for the center -- www.theyaremissed.org -- has details, including photos, on hundreds of missing men and women considered "endangered" or victims of foul play.
The nonprofit fields more than 300 calls a week, so many that there's a backlog of families seeking help -- with everything from publicizing cases on the Internet and drafting news releases to emotional support and help dealing with cops.
Lack of funding forced the group to halt police training, and last month, longtime offices were vacated and staff was cut to 2 from 13.
Reserves were depleted after spending $200,000 over estimates to create a national call center and provide Katrina families with case management and support, officials said.
Pasqualini, a single mother unpaid for her work with the group, has sold her own property to keep it running -- awaiting a congressional funding plan that has languished since February in a U.S. House subcommittee.
Kristen's Act Reauthorization of 2007 would provide the center up to $4 million a year.
"We worked so hard for this," said Deborah Modafferi of Charlotte, N.C., whose daughter Kristen disappeared in 1997, three weeks after her 18th birthday.
At the time, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children told the family it couldn't help -- because Kristen was no longer a child. So a campaign for missing adults began, resulting in Kristen's Act of 2000 and the missing adults center.
"The support this country gives to missing children needs to be extended to everyone. We think about Kristen every day, and we wouldn't want anybody to go through what we went through, finding there was no place to turn," Modafferi said.