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Destiny White and Christina Roman co-host Credit Chat Live, discussing domestic violence and financial abuse. They introduce Kim Penteco, Senior Director of the Economic Justice Program at the National Network to End Domestic Violence. Kim explains that financial abuse is a common form of domestic violence, with abusers using tactics like stealing money, sabotaging work or education, and ruining credit. She advises victims to create a secret stash of money and utilize technology safely. They also discuss signs of an abusive relationship, including intimidation, isolation, and economic abuse. Resources like the National Domestic Violence Hotline are available for help. I'm your co-host, Destiny White, and I'm so excited to guide you through this new chapter of Credit Chat Live. Let's get into the episode. Hello, and welcome to today's Credit Chat Live. Joining me today as a co-host is Christina Roman, our Consumer Education and Advocacy Manager at Experian. I'm so happy to have you, Christina. Thank you, Destiny. I'm really excited to be here today. Now, I do want to give a warning for our listeners that we're going to discuss the topic of domestic violence, financial abuse, trauma, and its impact on individuals. Listener discretion is advised. If you or someone you know is currently experiencing domestic violence, please seek help from a trusted resource or contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. That's 1-800-799-SAFE. Remember, you're not alone, and there is support available. That's absolutely right, Christina, and thank you for sharing that information. And today, we're thrilled to introduce our special guest, Kim Penteco, who is the Senior Director of the Economic Justice Program at the National Network to End Domestic Violence. Kim is joining us to lend us her expertise on domestic violence and financial abuse, which is a very crucial topic to cover. So, Kim, I just want to say thank you so much for being here. Thank you for having me. So, as you mentioned, I'm Kim Penteco. I'm Senior Director of Economic Justice for the National Network to End Domestic Violence. At the National Network, we work every day to end gender-based violence faced by survivors of domestic violence. And we do this using our network of 56 U.S. and state territorial domestic violence coalition and their 2,000-plus local domestic violence programs across this nation. And we do it through what we hope is thoughtful programming. We have targeted work we do around things like our safety net project, how technology is used and misused by survivors and their harm doers. We have a project called Women's Law that helps folks better understand the laws in their state, in their community, and it can be accessed by both survivors as well as advocates, and even attorneys can use Women's Law project. We have a Positively Safe program where we look at the intersection of domestic violence and HIV, as well as we do housing work and public policy work. But specifically, what I look at is I am working on economic justice and that intersection of domestic violence and finances and how that impacts survivors' lives every day. Wow, that's really important. I was looking through some of the data on your website and I saw that more than one in four women have experienced rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner. Some of these stats that I was reading were really alarming. And nationwide, on average, an average of three women are killed by a current or former intimate partner every single year, which is why we really wanted to have this important discussion and we're grateful to have you here, especially to discuss that financial abuse aspect of it because I know that many cases can start with financial abuse. And so I would love for you to talk about what is financial abuse and how do abusers use that tactic to keep their victims in that cycle of an abusive relationship? Yeah, when we talk about financial abuse, we talk about the context of domestic violence, that definition of domestic violence, that pattern of coercive behavior used to intimidate and threaten a current or former partner. So financial abuse, we see that playing out in almost 99% of all victims of domestic violence identify some form of financial abuse taking place in their relationship. And that can look anywhere from stealing money to making somebody ask for money to sabotaging work or even education, maybe blackening their eyes so they won't go in or keeping them up all night so they're exhausted. It can look like ruining their credit so that they can't get new housing or have new opportunities that require credit or access to credit. It can also like requiring somebody to have an allowance or begging them for money. So it can be anytime you see money or finances being used as a tool of oppression and power and there is this fear, that is what we contextualize as financial abuse. And then what resources are available? What are some steps that somebody can take if they discover that they are in a financially abusive relationship? Well, I think, Destiny, you started this off just right by talking about the DD hotline. You know, if you are in fear, if you want local resources, you can talk to a DD advocate at the hotline or you can be routed to somebody in your local community and talk to a local program. So the hotline is a great resource. They also do live chats. You can go to their website. You can text them as well. You can text SMART to them. So that's a wonderful resource. But if you're looking sort of beyond crisis, the first thing I would say is to start create that GoFund, that stash of money that it's only you know about, that only you can access. And it can look all kinds of ways and you can have multiple sources of that. It can be, you know, saving cash and rolling it up. And we had survivors roll it up in the bottom of their curtain hems in their living room. The soles of their shoes, old tampon, used tampon applicators, empty tampon applicators and put them back in the thing so they never get discovered. And we also, you know, we've had to really up our game with FinTech and technology around using things like Venmo and PayPal accounts and things like that, those online banking resources to stash funds in. So just being really creative about what's going to work for that individual, but create that GoFund that only they know about and they can protect. As we were, you know, we were thinking of responses for the chat. We're honored to have Kim in our recent credit chat to introduce domestic violence awareness month and financial abuse and ways to escape it. And we were talking about resources and how, you know, as we were thinking of, like, how can people keep their information safe if they're tracking their information on a phone, you know, because we often tell people, check your credit report, you know, use your banking app. But if you have somebody that maybe checks all of that, the technology that you use, how do you keep it safe? And it's so interesting that you shared those examples of the physical ways that we'll have to protect the money that they're saving. But how do they protect themselves when it comes to technology? Even if it's a third party authentication that, you know, if it's a facial authentication, things like that. But we also know survivors that are forced to give over access. So that's a huge challenge. So you would want to hide that app somewhere in another place that maybe reframe it, rename it. You want to hide an app if you are using some sort of a new bank account that they don't know about or whatever that looks like. And maybe a secondary one. So if you have your Venmo account that they know about and you try to have a secondary Venmo account, if that's at all possible. But you may have to rethink your online banking, too. I mean, maybe if you can go back to cash. It's one of the reasons we are really resistant when I think as a society, we're going away from cash. But for many survivors, that's their only access. But for other folks, it is a really safe form. So what we don't want to do is say, this is always the path people need to take. But it's really individualized, that individual person's circumstances. Wow, thank you so much. Thank you so much. And I just wanted to get into something really quickly. So I would like to cover maybe some of the signs of just being in a potentially toxic, dangerous, abusive situation in general. Because a lot of the time, abusive relationships can lead to that financial abuse that we've been covering the whole time. And not everyone is aware that they might be in a situation that could lead to potential danger. So I really wanted to ask you, Kim, if you could tell our listeners some of the signs of just an abusive relationship in general. I think that'd be really important to cover. Yeah. And actually, often we see some of those telltale signs starting in financial abuse. You know, just sort of like questioning where you're putting the money and making somebody ask for an allowance. So things that are not physically violent, not even illegal, but can be really oppressive and cause some intimidation and fear. So some of the things you'll see, and we talk about, those of us who do domestic violence work, the power and control will. And power and control is really the center of domestic violence. And you see different tactics play out to kind of keep that power and control in place. Things like use of intimidation. So making her afraid by using looks or gestures, smashing items, destroying property, isolation, controlling where they go or who they see, or limiting outside involvement. Also using jealousy for justifying reaction. Well, if I didn't love you so much, I wouldn't have to do this. If it didn't make me so crazy to see you talk to other people, I wouldn't have to do that. And that's also part of the crazy-making, because, God, they really, really love me, but seeing me talk to another person upsets them so much. But that's part of that intimidation. Minimizing, denying, blaming, so making light of abuse, not taking their concerns about it seriously, saying that it really didn't happen like that, it wasn't as bad as you're saying it was. So some gaslighting, we see that happening a lot. Even using kids, making them feel guilty about the kids, using visitation as an opportunity to further violence and abuse and threats and things like that, and then economic abuse, we see that as a huge piece of that. But we see, then, what I think people struggle with is that all those tactics are going on all the time, right? And much of it's not even illegal. Much of it doesn't include physical violence. But it's when the power and control within that relationship is challenged, is when we often see that physical and sexual violence de-employed. So when they make an act of independence, like opening their own bank account, getting a job, telling a friend or family, getting a protection order, then we see a lot of times physical sexual violence. It is not uncommon that when you hear about a domestic homicide, there was a recent filing of a protection order. That person was seeking safety, and the power and control was challenged, so they took the ultimate control back. That leaving is our only solution. If we say, you have to leave him, you have to leave, you have to go, and that's the only option you're giving me, that's not safe for many people, which is counterintuitive. That's one of the reasons, also, that GoFund is so critical, because sometimes staying for now is the safest thing, but when I'm ready to go, I need that stash. Gosh. Yeah. Thank you so much for pointing those signs out, because some people might be conditioned in their relationship to just not even realize that these daily activities that their partner is putting them through have, I don't want to say brainwashed, but gaslit them into thinking that this reality is okay to live in, and they don't even know where to turn, and a lot of the time, maybe if they're seeing these signs, maybe they could start with going to therapy and maybe coming up with a safe plan. I love that Destiny brought up the safety plan, because I know I saw that you have a safety plan toolkit on your website, and I would love for you to share, what does that look like? First and foremost, it's individualized. It's different for everybody, but you have to look at all the aspects of their life. Do they go to work every day? Can they think of how they can use their employer as part of that safety planning? We had a survivor one time work at a midsize company and had access to their letterhead. They sent themselves a letter at home on letterhead saying their insurance premium was increasing by $20 every pay period. They then went to HR and had an additional $20 savings on their check and going to a whole different savings account and built that savings account up they never knew about. Opened the letter up in front of their harm doer and said, oh, my check is going down by $20 because the insurance premiums went up. But it was really going to that step. So it's about being super creative. We've had survivors, if you have coupons at the grocery store and you don't use them at checkout, you can actually then go to the customer service and say, I forgot to use my coupons at checkout and go cash back. That's really helpful because we've had survivors say he gives me money to go to the grocery store but he checks my receipt and he sees that I got everything so I have to come back with the exact change. So it has to be so individualized and so unique to that individual circumstances and being really creative. It also means that those of us who care about folks who are experiencing this be willing to be a part of that safety plan. Do you need me to stash money? What do you need me to hold on to? Do you need to put an account in my name? Whatever that looks like. It just requires a lot of creativity and individualization. I would love for you to share some resources that you have available for anybody that may be experiencing domestic violence or financial abuse maybe if this conversation started to make them think about how they can create their own safety plan. Where can we direct them? Yeah, well first and foremost, of course, the hotline. I always want to make sure folks have that in a crisis situation. But we also, we've been so fortunate to have partnered with the Allstate Foundation for nearly 20 years now to develop a Moving Ahead financial literacy curriculum. And it is a very traditional financial literacy curriculum in that we talk about budgeting and how credit works. Safety planning is module one and those concepts are woven throughout the rest of the curriculum. You can go to our website nnedb.org forward slash moving ahead. Get a direct link to that curriculum. You can go to the Allstate Foundation's website as well. Type in relationship abuse and find it there. They have lots of great self-guided modules. It's available in Spanish, English, French, and Vietnamese. So that's one place I want folks to think about. The other thing is that we started a credit building project where we do credit building microloans for survivors. We're able to offer $100 no fee, no interest credit building microloan. They're paid back $10 a month for 10 months. Every month she makes her payment. We report to the credit bureaus. And on average, we're seeing credit scores increase by 25 to 30 points. So while it's playing a bit of a long game, it is helping folks then get more reasonable rates to buy a used car that they may need access to so they can get to a job, so they don't have to ride public transportation and can pick kids up from daycare easier. It may get them into housing they never had an opportunity at. So it's a bit of a long game. And then I would just really encourage anybody that's listening to this and maybe says, well, what can I do? I'm not suffering right now, but I care about people who are, is donate to your local programs. While we're always grateful for whatever didn't sell at your garage store, you know, garage sale, cash is so helpful for the local programs that are running on budget. You know, when their washing machine breaks down, they don't have a grant to cover that. And so just cash assistance, helping those local programs stay afloat and get those funds out to survivors is hugely helpful. That's wonderful. Thank you so much. Yes, that was going to be one of the questions that we wanted to ask you was if somebody wants to get involved or they want to help get involved with the National Network to End Domestic Violence, or how can they support even victims of domestic violence? Do you have any additional tips to share there? We would also love your money. You're welcome to donate to us. You know, $100 backs loans. Do you want to back a survivor's loan? $100, you are basically helping give a loan to a survivor of domestic violence. We'd love to do that. You can get on our action alert. So we have a lot of action alerts available on our public policy side. If you want to reach out to congressional members or even your local state lawmakers to let them know that this is an important topic for you as well. We're always working on improving funding stream for local programs and survivors, as well as improving laws to help protect them and keep harm doers accountable. So there's opportunities on all the gamuts. You don't have to have a lot of money. You can just make a phone call and tell people that it's important to you. So that's one way you can really get involved. Again, reach out to your local program. See if there's anything you can do. Maybe you have a service that you can offer in kind. Maybe you own a home painting company that could help update their shelter. And there's all kinds of opportunities for getting involved. Thank you, Jen. Thank you. Yeah, I really love the fact that you brought up that survivors are able to build credit little by little just by making those $10 payments towards their loan. That is such a crucial aspect in this conversation because a lot of the time, survivors are victims of their credit being destroyed in the process of being in this relationship. And credit is a huge stepping stone for getting out of that situation. So I'm really, really glad to hear that and to hear all of these resources. It'll be extremely useful for those who are listening. And with that being said, do you have any tips for those who are debating on changing their situation? Because a lot of the time, survivors have a difficult time making that step. I would say, first and foremost, trust your gut. It's kept you alive so far. So follow your gut. Your gut's telling you something. You're telling you it's not right. It's telling you, I don't deserve this, but I don't know what to do. So first and foremost, know that we value you. We think you're worth it. There's help available to you. We also recognize that you need to be incredibly strategic about what leading looks like. And so really honor your gut when it's telling you, not now, but I'm heading that direction, and that's okay. So I just would just encourage folks to trust their autonomy, trust their inner voice of telling them, I don't deserve this, but I need to make a plan so it looks different down the road, to just follow that. And I guess I want to also make sure that I say to those of us who care about folks, who may be experiencing this, one of the things I think that we tend to do as strong women, we say things like, I never let a man put his hands on me. I'd leave if it was me. I wouldn't put up with that. What you're saying to me, who may be not safe in my home, is that I'm stupid. You've got it figured out that I'm failing because I go home terrified. I go home and get my money taken. So I need us as the other strong women in the room to just say things like, I'm scared for you. I'm worried about you. I want to know what you need from me. How can I be a part of your plan? I trust your journey and I am here for you. That, I think, is what we can do as people who care about people. Giving me chills. Absolutely. That's so good. I really hope someone hears this and it hits their heart and you inspire change in their life because there's always a light at the end of the tunnel and you're never stuck. It just takes maybe just taking one step to move towards a better outcome, a better life, a new life. It's always possible. Yeah. I just want to frame it, too, that I want folks to understand what leaving looks like, too, particularly for women living in poverty. You know, if I consider myself pretty middle-income, I can get in my gassed-up car. I can use a credit card to fill it up. I could even buy a plane ticket and fly across town on a moment's notice if I had to. I could take my children with me. I could stay in a hotel that feels pretty safe. When I'm living in poverty, fleeing looks like maybe staying in a hotel for an hour or two that doesn't feel safe. Doubling up with friends and family, they're likely in a very similar socioeconomic status. I have adult children, nearly. So, it means doubling up on a couch. And I can't do that for too many days. It means sleeping in my car for a couple of nights. If I've got little ones, how many days can I send them to school in the same outfit before somebody calls Child Protective Services? You know? So, I think we need to be realistic about what leaving looks like. It costs a lot of money to start over. It costs, you know, you have to get, you know, deposit, first month's rent, last month's rent. That's not cheap. So, I think people can just leave. But to go where? There's wait lists in shelter. There's a wait list for public housing. Leaving's not easy. And so, women literally can't afford to not be beaten sometimes. So, it's important to understand that it's not this or that. Those choices aren't that easy. And so, having a tremendous amount of grace and understanding for what that really looks like for folks. And, you know, when I'm living on property and I'm living in my car with my kids, when my partner begs me to come home and says I have diapers for the kids, I went and got formula. That, my ability to navigate and negotiate my safety looks really different if I don't know how I'm going to pay for tomorrow. Right? Yes. So, it's huge. And what you're saying, it reminds me of, I don't know if either of you have seen that show on Netflix called Made. But you're basically painting a picture of what the main character experienced in her journey leaving and starting over. And it is not a linear path. It is not a simple process for those who are struggling in poverty. I'm really glad that you're able to highlight the fact that it's not that simple. There's a lot of misconceptions around those who are experiencing any sort of domestic abuse, especially financial. So, I really, really appreciate you bringing that up in this conversation. Absolutely. Yes. Thank you for joining us to help us raise awareness about this very important topic. I would love if you could let our listeners know where they can learn more about the National Network to End Domestic Violence and the resources that you have available. Yes. So, reach out to us, nnedv.org, and that's our initials, National Network to End Domestic Violence, dot org, forward slash moving ahead. If you want to learn more about our curriculum, you can search on their independence project if you want to learn about our micro-lending program. There's a big old donate button on there somewhere, too, if you want to do that. So, you can go to our website. And also, there's a great action alert, again, for the public policy side. If you want to get involved in how to change laws, how to improve funding, that's a wonderful way to learn more about it. Wonderful. Thank you. Beautiful, Kim. Thank you so much. And yes, I just wanted to say thank you so much for joining us today to help us raise awareness about this crucial topic that is not heavily discussed enough. Kim, do you have any end remarks or any comments to say to any survivors going through domestic or financial abuse at the moment? I don't know if I want to say this way to the survivors. I think they know who they are, and they know what they're dealing with. And so, I think I want to say to everybody else, you know, it's one in four out there that you talked about. So, I want to talk to the three out of four. And some of those three out of fours are working in companies that have access to have more conversation about this. You know, Experian has done an amazing job here by saying this is important to me. You all are employing survivors. Right now, you have survivors that are going home tonight and are not safe in their own home. Every employer is in the same situation. This is an opportunity as an employer to have this conversation, to put signs up in your break room, whatever, to notify folks that we care about you and your journey. We want folks to be safe, not only here at work, but at home. And so, it's a real opportunity to put a challenge out to all those other companies and employers out there to start making safe space to have these conversations. So, thanks to Experian for doing that. Thank you, Kim. Oh, I got chills just listening to that right now. And that is so important. One in four. So, it could be anybody. 100 percent. Thank you, Kim. Thank you, Christina. This has been a very enlightening and educational conversation. And I just want to thank you for coming on Credit Chat Live. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this episode of Credit Chat Live. I'm Destiny White, your co-host, signing off for now. Don't forget to subscribe and stay tuned for more. Bye.
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