Mass shooting survivors, victims’ families push Virginia legislators for long-term financial support
February 2022
Advocates, including Joe Samaha, of the Virginia Mass Violence Care Fund, met with a group of state lawmakers in Richmond to share their stories. Read the full article from “The Virginia Pilot” here.
“As a lot of military folks understand, PTSD is very difficult and it’s hard to deal with. You can cope with it, but it doesn’t go away,” said Samaha, who serves as president of the VTV Family Outreach Foundation, a nonprofit that assists mass shooting survivors nationwide. “The Virginia Beach families have been in their own war.”
Samaha urged lawmakers to invest in their long-term care.
Additional Coverage
An additional excerpt from Joe was featured in Wavy.com.
“Virginia Beach families have been in their own war. That was a war, and they understand what PTSD is… What happens to my body? What happens to my brain 10 years from now, not just today, not just tomorrow?” he said.
On Tuesday, he spoke with state Attorney General Jason Miyares, local members of the House of Delegates, a city employee who was in Building 2 of the Virginia Beach Municipal Center during the mass shooting, and a spouse of a worker killed,
“The Virginia Beach delegation that was present today [is] starting to understand the needs of families and victims of mass shootings and mass violence. Their financial needs in the long-term that they never considered. They figure people will go home they will be OK. They will get over it. They won’t it is a lifetime journey” he said.
Samaha then appeared before the commission investigating the Virginia Beach mass shooting, asking them to voice support for the Mass Violence Care Fund.
“I acknowledge or recommend that this is an idea that the Commonwealth might want to look at, not only for Virginia Beach families and survivors, but for other mass violence victims in the Commonwealth,” he said.
The vote supporting the care fund was unanimous Tuesday.
Coverage from WKTR
VTVCare helps families and survivors pay for long-term trauma needs that insurance doesn't cover. Now, VTVCare is working with Virginia Beach mass shooting families to establish help for them.
So many of the survivors and family members have gone through physical and mental health therapy, just as Joesph Samaha did - and still does.
It's been nearly 15 years, but every day Samaha thinks of his daughter, Reema, who was killed among 32 others in the Virginia Tech mass shooting.
"Eight years after the shooting, my wife said, 'Hey, Joe, I think you need to check in with someone,'" he said.
He's been in therapy ever since, reimbursed by the Commonwealth as part of VTVCare Foundation, started by Virginia Tech families three years after the massacre.
"We learned so much from our experience. Why can't we model that to Virginia Beach?" Samaha said. "It's like a plug -and-play. At Virginia Tech, it was a disgruntled student, and this was a disgruntled employee."