Agency assisting battered women loses funding

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(Host) An agency that helps battered women permanently leave abusive situations has lost much of its funding for Southern Vermont.

The nonprofit Have Justice Will Travel has been forced to close its Brattleboro office and is struggling to remain open in Bennington.

VPR’s Susan Keese reports.

(Keese) Vermont is generally thought of as a very safe place to live. But Wynona Ward grew up in a rural household in Vermont where domestic violence happened every day.

Ward, who became a lawyer, has spent her life helping others out of situations like that. Her organization, Have Justice Will Travel, offers legal aid and more, for battered women in Vermont.

(Ward) "We don’t leave them at the courthouse door after the relief-from-abuse hearing. We go on to help them specifically, whether they need housing or transportation, or if they need referrals for groceries or funds that they need to help their children get clothes for school."

(Keese) Ward says issues like those drive many women back to their abusers, or to new abusive partners. She says most of her group’s clients reverse that trend.

Have Justice *had expanded into five locations in Vermont.

Since 2003, offices in Bennington and Brattleboro were funded through a shared Department of Justice grant for victims of abuse in rural areas.

But a federal rule change adopted several years ago now limits legal services under those grants to help with relief-from-abuse-orders only. Have Justice also typically helps with divorce and Family Court issues – where free legal help is otherwise unavailable.

(Ward) "So we were advised that we needed to apply for a legal assistance for victims grant, which enables us to provide all these services for women, which we feel is essential to having them become strong and independent on their own."

(Keese) But Ward says those grants are more competitive, and Have Justice didn’t win funding.  The Brattleboro office, which *had a lawyer and a paralegal, closed at the end of September.

Ward says the southern programs did receive a smaller rural grant. She hopes the Department of Justice will work with her so it can be used to keep the Bennington office open in a limited way.

(Ward) "To be able to still provide services in Bennington and have that attorney available to also provide at least representations for relief from abuse hearings in Brattleboro also. But it will be much more limited on what we can provide."

(Keese) Linda Campbell of the Bennington-based Project Against Violent Encounters often refers clients to the program.  She calls the cuts in funding a major step back.

(Campbell)   "And what we know is that batterers often can find the money to have attorneys."

(Keese) Campbell and Ward both say that funds for other programs for women in transition have also been cut.

Ward says she’ll re-apply for full funding for her program in January.

For VPR News, I’m Susan Keese.

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