Mission
Casa Myrna Vazquez, Inc. (CMV) is a community-based multicultural organization dedicated to the eradication of violence against women and chilaren. Working towards this goal, the organization advocates for social justice in order to create a safe and vioience free environment. CMV is committed to the empowerment of women through education, leadership development and the provision of quality services that address the full scope of needs of battered women and their children. CMV embraces diversity with a focus on women and children of color and the promotion of collaborative alliances that strengthen community.

For over twenty years, Casa Myrna Vazquez, Inc. has been meeting the needs of battered women and children who are experiencing the life and death trauma of domestic violence. Since its inception, CMV has provided shelter, support and services to 10,000 women and children and has responded to over 70,000 hotline calls.

Begun as a community -based bilingual and multicultural organization responding to the needs of victims of family violence, CMV now offers a comprehensive service of intervention, prevention, sheltering and community education. The agency is well-known for its specialized outreach to Latino and African American families from the Greater Boston area.

The impact of violence in the home reverberates throughout society undermining public safety and eroding the well being of our communities. For two decades, Casa Myrna Vazquez, Inc. has worked to save and renew the lives of battered women and their children, while building the public's awareness of battering as a serious crime no longer to be silently tolerated.

The idea that violence, abuse and murder would take place within the confines of a family unit, behind the closed doors of a house was not a matter for public discussion until rather recently. CMV was in the forefront of the nationwide movement to publicize the problem and to make sure that abuse in the home would no longer be silently tolerated. Today, because of the work of Casa Myrna Vazquez, Inc. and other organizations across the country, we cannot help be aware of the problem that confronts enormous numbers of women and their children in the country, in Massachusetts and in Boston.

According to the U.S. Department of Justice, crimes against women are continuing to rise faster than the crime rate as a whole. According to the U.S. Surgeon General's Office, violence continues to be the number one health risk for women ages 14 to 44. The chilling truth is that without the shelter, hotline, legal advocacy and other services CMV provides, some women and children might not be alive today.

Despite the danger they face when they flee a violent relationship, many battered women are doing all they can to free themselves and their children from the horror of violence in the home. The CMV 24 hour Hot Line is the fffst contact for many women seeking safety. Access to safe shelter at CMV saves the lives of many women who find the agency on their own. For others, identifying the abuse early in its cycle may save them from years of terror and injury. Whatever their individual stories, Casa Myrna Vazquez, Inc. is there to see that they do not become yet another murder statistic, and that they find support to build a new life.

Battered women make a very difficult choice when they seek emergency shelter. Their decision brings great economic uncertainty. Programs for our most vulnerable citizens are being cut as never before. Women who seek reflige in battered women's shelters now also risk prolonged homelessness that further strains an overburdened system.

With recent reductions in welfare benefits and housing subsidies, it has become even more difficult for low income women to leave violent men without compromising their economic well-being. For immigrant women these difficulties are augmented by language and cultural barriers that impede them from accessing the services that can lead them to safety. These realities hold particular relevance to the low income, urban communities of color served by CMV.

For over twenty years, Casa Myrna Vazquez, Inc. has maintained its status as New England's largest sheltering program for battered women and their families. Although CMV has been successful in its development efforts, the organization does face financial pressure. CMV has left no avenue of funding unexplored in the quest to meet its annual operating budget. The organization continues to seek out new friends to help meet the critical challenges facing it. Casa Myrna Vazquez, Inc. helps turn individual lives around, and move the community closer to the abolition of domestic violence. Financial contributions and other forms of support to CMV ensure that the organization moves forward with faith in its ability to survive and with determination to continue providing exemplary service to battered women and their children.

Celebrating 20 Years

About Casa Myrna Vazquez
Casa Myrna Vazquez (CMV) is New England's largest sheltering organization for survivors of domestic violence. The organization operates five residential programs and offers comprehensive support services to over 4,000 women and children each year. During the past two decades, Casa Myrna Vazquez has met the needs of battered women and their children in an increasingly complex environment. The Legal Advocacy and Mental Health programs were created to complement the core Emergency Shelter and Hotline services. These programs utilize a team of law students and graduate interns who are supervised by the CMV staff attorneys and clinicians. We are now applying this model to the Children's Services Program which has evolved from traditional child care to a clinically based, therapeutic program.

Casa Myrna has created a component to address the post-crisis needs of survivors of domestic violence. This includes the Transitional Living Program for adult women and their children, and the Adolescent Transitional Living Program, the only residential program in Massachusetts for battered teens and adolescents.

Recognizing that the most effective long term strategy is prevention, Casa Myrna has developed the Education and Training Program. This program is nationally recognized for its work in identifying risk factors that give rise to, co-exist with, or result from domestic violence. By linking these issues, Casa Myrna Vazquez works to prevent domestic violence and substance abuse, infant mortality, HIV/AIDS, and homelessness.

Throughout the evolution of these programs, CMV has remained true to its origins and the community out of which it grew. Casa Myrna Vazquez began as a community-based, bilingual and multi-cultural organization founded by Latino, African American, Asian American, and European American community women and men. The agency continues to provide a special outreach to women of color from low income, urban communities. Latina and African American women comprise over seventy percent of our shelter guests.

Reflecting this diversity, the women who come to CMV find a staff of over forty professionals that is seventy-five percent women of color and sixty percent bilingual. Many are community women and some are formerly battered women who bring their special sensitivity to working with survivors of domestic violence. Together with a dedicated Board and committed team of more than forty volunteers, they help battered women to build new, non-violent lives for themselves and their children.