It's been nearly four months since a stranger broke Felix Zayas' hand.

The Uber driver was waiting to pick up a passenger when a stranger accosted him, accusing him of stealing his car and throwing racial slurs at him. In February, shortly after the incident, Zayas applied for state assistance to help him cover the nearly $20,000 in vehicle damages and medical costs — a decision he is still waiting to hear back on today.

"Soon I realized that no one was going to help me," Zayas said in an interview with The Indy. "I lost my girlfriend. I lost my house. I'm living alone." 

Zayas is just one of the dozens of people who has been waiting for months to receive funds through the state's Victim Compensation Program, according to interviews with victims and advocates. The program, which is partially funded through federal dollars, is supposed to provide financial assistance to victims of violent crimes, helping them with everything from recouping medical expenses to lost wages. 

But victims and advocates alike say the state has failed to compensate individuals or even acknowledge their applications, leaving people without money to cover medical bills, housing costs and other basic expenses as they recover.  The program is generally considered a "last resort" for people who have few other sources of help, such as medical insurance or victim restitution. 

In fiscal year 2026, the federal government allocated nearly $4 million to help compensate Nevada victims. The delays come despite state law requiring officials to make a decision on victim compensation applications within 60 days of receiving them. If an application is denied, state law requires applicants to be notified within five days.

Liz Ortenburger, the CEO of SafeNest, one of the state's largest domestic violence prevention organizations, said she knows of nearly 600 applications that have not been processed by the Nevada Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS), which handles the claims. Although she said she doesn't believe the state's intent is "malicious," she said that the state is drastically lacking resources and struggles with bureaucratic red tape.

"I think it's just kind of like Nevada, right," Ortenburger said. "We struggle to have systems that are fluidly working as smoothly as we would all like." 

The growing backlog prompted the Resiliency & Justice Center, a statewide victim assistance organization, to send a letter to the state earlier this month, giving officials 14 days to respond. The 14 days are up on Friday.  

"We have clients in desperate need of this support," the organization said in a statement.

NV DCFS did not respond to a request for comment on what is leading to delays nor how many applications are waiting to be processed. Gov. Joe Lombardo's office told The Indy that DCFS is taking steps to address the timeliness in processing applications, including the addition of three compensation officers and evaluating structural changes to the program, such as potential statutory changes.

"We are committed to supporting victims of crime in our state," Lombardo's office said. 

Garland Wady, who has been helped by the Resiliency & Justice Center, is still awaiting a decision on his compensation application more than two months after applying. In April, Wady's car was shot at in the early morning while he was coming back from grabbing a bite. 

Wady said that he lives in fear of another violent incident, suspecting it may be racially motivated. Since he moved to Las Vegas in August, it's been incident after incident:  His back window was recently busted out and his car has been vandalized multiple times. Although he is desperate to move, Wady has struggled to relocate without that funding. 

"I gotta continue staying here, going through what I'm going through, and it's like I keep getting put more in a hole," Wady said in an interview.

Bureaucratic red tape

Part of the problem is that up until last year, a third-party vendor administered compensation claims on behalf of the department, something DCFS said caused several operational challenges, including limiting its ability to access data and generate detailed reports. 

According to budget documents, the agency has been moving to process claims in-house. One individual connected to the department, granted anonymity because of potential legal pushback, said that they have been relying on spreadsheets and online documents to process the claims this year. 

The agency's $1.6 million contract with the vendor, Cost Containment Strategies Inc., expired in June 2025, according to budget documents. During a budget hearing that year, DCFS testified that it did not anticipate a delay in processing claims for victims of crime during the transition to a new application and processing system. 

"It is like any contract we have. There is a transition period," Marla McDade Williams, the  administrator for DCFS, said during a legislative hearing in February 2025. "We will ensure that we do not cut someone off prior to ensuring that we are able to make the required payments."

Lombardo's office told The Indy that DCFS is working to build a new application that will support program operations and reduce the need for manual processes. 

Lawmakers also raised concerns during the Feb. 12 hearing about the program's reliance on widely variable federal funding, which is based in part on state spending from two years earlier. Federal funding for Nevada's victim compensation program fell to about $742,000 in fiscal year 2025 before increasing to roughly $3.7 million in fiscal year 2026.

"We are obviously trying to monitor what is happening with the federal government." Assembly Speaker Steve Yeager (D-Las Vegas) said during the meeting. "I think there is a lot of confusion there."

In budget documents submitted in 2023, DCFS also warned that annual revenues were declining while program costs were increasing after lawmakers expanded the definition of crime victims eligible for reimbursement. The agency said it had been unable to identify additional funding sources to cover those costs.

It's not the first time that DCFS has come under fire for its handling of victim funding. In 2021, a U.S. Department of Justice audit found that the state reported inaccurate performance data to the federal government and did not clearly communicate program guidelines to victims of rape or sexual assault. It identified about $360,000 in "questioned costs" related to victim funding and determined the department had "significant internal control weaknesses." 

And in 2018, another federal audit questioned $2.7 million in state spending related to federal crime victim assistance grants in Nevada, including $1.87 million in grants distributed to individual community service providers.

Even so, the program continues to serve thousands of Nevadans each year. Nearly 4,000 victims received compensation in 2024, according to federal data, with assault and homicide victims accounting for the largest share of recipients.

For victims such as Zayas, however, the program's long-term history matters less than when help will arrive. Nearly four months after the attack that broke his arm, he is still waiting and is even considering leaving Las Vegas to reunite with the rest of his family.

"I'm trying to recover … and nothing," Zayas said.