At a press conference where Gov. Phil Scott declared this week Domestic and Sexual Violence Awareness Week, state officials, domestic violence advocates and representatives of M&T Bank celebrated a new program to offer financial literacy resources to survivors of abuse.
Funded through a $100,000 donation from M&T Bank’s Charitable Foundation, the state treasurer’s office is partnering with the Vermont Network Against Domestic and Sexual Violence to provide financial educational resources to survivors to help them leave abusive relationships and or rebuild their lives after they’re free from their partners.
“I hear many different stories of abuse on a daily basis,” Ari Menard, an advocate from the Washington County-based domestic violence shelter Circle Vermont, said at Tuesday’s press conference. “But there is one form of abuse that is the single biggest barrier to housing, and to allowing survivors to move on with their life. And that is financial abuse.”
For many survivors of domestic violence, financial dependence can be one of the greatest barriers keeping them from leaving their abusive partners, or forcing them to ultimately return. Staying in or returning to an abusive relationship can be fatal: According to a January report from the Vermont Attorney General’s Office, between 1994 and 2022, 45% of Vermont’s 403 homicides were related to domestic violence.
Menard said on Tuesday that financial abuse can take many forms. It can mean barring a victim from working, so they can’t attain financial independence. It can mean forcing a victim to cash their paychecks and hand over their money. It can mean tallying the car’s odometer and checking grocery store receipts to make sure not a penny was spent elsewhere. It can mean opening a slew of credit cards in a victim’s name, maxing them out and wrecking their credit score.
“More stereotypical” forms of abuse have financial repercussions for victims, too, Menard said. If a victim is being verbally or physically abused, they may flee their home and seek shelter in a hotel to get away from their abuser — perhaps maxing out their own credit card in the process. This, Menard said, is “the cost of survivorship.”
“Most often, I see the tangible effects of financial abuse in poor credit scores that in no way reflect the credit and the financial abilities and the person with that score,” Menard said. “These credit scores haunt survivors as they seek housing, or to apply for new financial products, while they try to work to reassemble the pieces of their lives.”
The financial literacy classes, set to be provided through the Vermont Network, will teach survivors the basics of how to attain financial independence and improve their credit scores. Some of M&T Bank’s $100,000 donation — set to be distributed over four years — will also go toward “mini grants” to help survivors get back on their feet.
