There’s No Subsidy For The First Step Out

Food stamps pay for food. A daycare subsidy helps with childcare. A housing allowance pays for rent, or some of it, in a place most of us would not want to live.

The point is, all of these things pay for specific things. You can’t use your SNAP card to get clothes and you can’t borrow from your daycare subsidy to find a lawyer. There are hoops to jump through to qualify for aid, and then hoops to continue navigating to remain compliant. 

And this is just to live. Just to survive and get by. Not to thrive. Not to move forward. There’s very little assistance available for legal matters — for abuse survivors who want to and need to get a divorce or need to establish custody parameters. What does exist is overwhelmed.

And there’s nothing out there, except For Your Record, that pays the filing fees that come with initiating legal action.

Anyone who watched MAID on Netflix saw that Alex, the main character leaving an emotionally abusive relationship, searched for and utilized as much aid as she could. And the story did an incredible job of showing what she had to do to get the aid she needed, nevermind the pushback she got about enduring emotional abuse.

She left with nothing, like many survivors. So, she needed everything.

What some people don’t know, or can’t fathom, is that some abusers lock their partners out of their bank accounts, shut down credit cards, or spend like a lottery-winner — putting the survivor’s financial present and future in peril. And they do it even if children are involved, because...they just do. They just can.

I can’t begin to understand the rationale metabolized by an abuser.

Think about this for a second -- if you were left without access to your bank account or credit cards today, where would you go? What would you do? Now consider, you don’t have a car and you’ve been systematically isolated from family and friends by your abuser and the weight of your own shame for the situation you’re in. 

It’s a wildly uncomfortable place to be. 

When someone files for divorce, it freezes financial assets — effectively protecting them until a judgement is issued. So filing, for many who experience financial abuse, is imperative. The same can be said for custody paperwork.

Alex faced emotionally-charged allegations in a courtroom that her ex knew weren’t true after leaving him, and taking their daughter with her — and that same scene plays out in courtrooms every day across the country. The Washington Post ran a story a couple years ago about the legal perils female abuse survivors face in family court, when the tables can be turned so quickly. It’s why custody paperwork is also critical to securing a safe future for abuse survivors. 

The only way, it seemed, Alex got legal help was through the generosity of a cleaning client.

Trust me when I say the grants offered by For Your Record are moving people forward in ways they wouldn’t otherwise be able to advance on their own. When you have nothing in your pocket, except guilt and shame and fear, and you need to come up with a few hundred dollars to protect yourself and your kids...it might as well be a few thousand dollars. 

It’s essentially unattainable.

Remember Alex’s running bank account total? There’s never much in there. And even with food stamps, it goes quick. That’s real. 

So, by lifting that one burden, as For Your Record does, it allows the survivor to focus on other pressing issues. That survivor isn’t there, in that situation, because he or she wanted to be. No one wants that, ever. No one. 

It’s one of the reasons people don’t leave. Because the unknown is more terrifying than the reality they know, even if it’s abusive.

They didn’t ask for it. But they’re there. And abusers love confusion and limbo and chaos, so they’re generally (at least in my experience) not the ones who will jump up and pay for fees and initiate filings. 

It’s why giving someone the power to initiate their own transformation is so important. It’s a life moment. And it’s just one step in the journey. But without that step, they’re stationary.

To support the life-changing work we’re doing, please consider donating to For Your Record.