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Asset Building for Domestic Violence Survivors: Why is it Important?

Domestic violence is best understood as a pattern of abusive behaviors -- including physical, sexual, and psychological attacks as well as economic coercion -- used by one intimate partner against another to gain, maintain, or regain power and control in the relationship. Abusive partners use a range of tactics to frighten, manipulate, hurt, and often injure a current or former intimate partner.[1] Each year, about 4.8 million women experience physical assault or rape by an intimate partner; 2.9 million men suffer incidents of physical assault from their intimate partner. [2] Each day in the United States, three women are killed by an intimate partner.[3] One in four women will experience domestic violence in her lifetime.[4] The National Census on Domestic Violence found that on a one-day count in 2009, over 65,000 domestic violence victims received help in local domestic violence programs nationwide, with half of them seeking emergency shelter or transitional housing and others receiving individual counseling, legal advocacy, and other support services.[5]

Research and experience also underscore that economic coercion and control are important tactics used by abusive partners, with particular impacts on women.[6] Economic dependence is one of the main reasons that women remain in or return to an abusive relationship.[7] In one study, more than half of domestic violence victims surveyed stayed with their abusive partner because they did not feel they could support themselves and their children.[8] Another study of the exit plans of women leaving domestic violence shelters found that access to independent income, along with child care and transportation, were key in deciding whether to return to their abusive partners.[9]

Recent research has also documented how economic abuse by an intimate partner impacts a woman’s confidence in managing financial resources and her ability to achieve long-term safety and security.[10]

Given these realities, domestic violence survivors are a population that could greatly benefit from asset building services. Financial independence is often a pathway out of an abusive relationship. Many survivors— those who have left and those still connected in some way to their abuser—are often faced with considerable debt, poor credit, no credit history, lack of savings, and other financial hardships—often directly due to economic abuse they have experienced. Economic abuse and coercion by an intimate partner takes many forms, including putting all bills in the survivors’ name, denying them access to money or credit cards, and interfering with or preventing employment. The process of becoming financially stronger can be particularly challenging to domestic violence survivors, many of whom battle feelings of powerlessness in the process of gaining control of various aspects of their lives.

Over the past several years domestic violence agencies and asset building organizations have begun exploring ways to boost the financial strength of domestic violence survivors. Increasingly, domestic violence agencies have added financial education, credit repair, debt management, access to the Earned Income Tax Credit, and Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) to their arsenal of support services, but agencies’ experience with offering these new services is nascent. A small but growing number of asset building organizations are partnering with domestic violence agencies to provide these services, and, during the course of these partnerships, are learning about the special needs of this population (e.g., the need to ensure confidentiality and incorporate safety planning when dealing with clients who have partners who still pose a risk to them or their children) as well as how best to help survivors achieve financial stability.

As part of this new effort, a number of financial education curricula have been customized for domestic violence survivors. Along with typical financial literacy components, they include information on economic abuse as well as addressing safety concerns, including how to separate joint financial relationships with an abusive partner, how to repair credit damaged by an abuser, and where to for help with financial and safety challenges. Early evaluation results from two of these programs seem promising. [11] One study revealed significant gains in financial literacy knowledge and confidence in managing finances when comparing survivors who received the program to those who did not. The other found that most survivors who participated in this program changed their financial behaviors by setting financial goals, creating a budget, and paying down their debt. About 20 percent of participating survivors started a retirement account.

An expanding knowledge base on promising practices for serving this population is emerging. For instance, it is understood that survivors will need different services, and different approaches to receiving services, depending on their physical proximity and financial attachment to their abuser. Women still living with an abusive partner need access to financial information, counseling, encouragement, and basic financial support to help them make an informed decision regarding leaving the relationship and to do so in a way that will not increase the risk of physical or economic harm to themselves or their dependents.

Women who have recently left their abusers often need help to obtain safe and affordable housing, reliable transportation, legal assistance if seeking a divorce, employment and/or assistance in finding work that pays a living wage. They may also need to establish or mend credit, reduce debt and pay medical bills. Getting to the point of being able to start an IDA is often a very incremental process for survivors, and may include setbacks.

The Building Assets for Survivors of Domestic Violence initiative will be a federal government effort to expand asset-building services to this population and hone strategies for how best to help domestic violence survivors achieve greater financial independence and strength. It is a joint effort between the HHS’ Office of Community Services (OCS), which administers the Assets for Independence (AFI) demonstration program, and the Family and Youth Services Bureau (FYSB), which supports a significant portion of the nation’s domestic violence services infrastructure. Domestic violence survivors are a new focus for the AFI program, which over the years has explored bringing asset-building services to a number of vulnerable low-income populations, including people with disabilities, and more recently, parents of preschool-aged children, Native Americans, refugees, and parents involved in the child support system.

FYSB runs the Family Violence Prevention and Service program, which supports over 1,600 community-based domestic violence programs across the country through formula grants to State and Territories and Tribes. Since 1984, these programs have evolved to provide a wide range of services, including: emergency shelter; transitional housing; safety planning; counselling; legal services; child care and services for children; career planning; life skills training; community education and public awareness; and other necessities such as clothing, food, and transportation. Together, FYSB and OCS seek to increase the number of partnerships between domestic violence and asset-building agencies and train both communities in the financial needs of this population and how best to tailor asset building services to meet those needs.

For more information about Building Assets for Survivors of Domestic Violence visit the Assets for Independence Resource Center

Telephone: 1-866-778-6037 E-Mail: info@idaresources.org