Casa Myrna

It has residential programs and provides services such as housing assistance, legal advocacy, and counseling. Donors include Bank of America, the Cummings Foundation, the Mary Kay Foundation, the Wyss Foundation, the Boston Foundation, and large donor-advised funds American Online Giving Foundation, Schwab Charitable Fund, and Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund. ³

Background

Casa Myrna (Casa Myrna Vazquez Inc.) was founded in 1977 as a volunteer-run shelter in Boston’s South End for abused women and their children. It was founded by a group of neighborhood activists, including actress and civil rights activist Myrna Vazquez, after whom the organization was eventually named, and Mary Lawson Foreman, after whom the group named its first residential shelter. ^{1 4}

Casa Myrna is a member of the Jane Doe Inc. coalition which is a state-wide coalition focused on “gender equity, racial justice, and safety for all.” ² Other coalition members include the ACLU of Massachusetts, Massachusetts Immigrants and Refugees Advocacy, the Massachusetts Law Reform Institute, Stop Handgun Violence, and the Planned Parenthood Advocacy Fund of Massachusetts. ⁵

Casa Myrna is listed as Boston’s largest provider of services to domestic violence survivors on the Massachusetts government site under the Massachusetts Office for Victim Assistance. ⁶

In 2019, Casa Myrna purchased and began renovating a historic building in the Dorchester Grove Hall neighborhood in Boston with a $3,250,000 tax-exempt bond from MassDevelopment, which is Massachusetts’ finance and development agency. The building will be its headquarters. ⁷

Casa Myrna advocates for intersectionality, which considers multiple aspects of identity such as race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and religion to understand “oppression and discrimination for marginalized groups and individuals.” The concept was introduced by Kimberle Crenshaw, an activist and supporter of critical race theory. ⁸

Programs

Casa Myrna has residential programs, provides housing assistance, and offers financial literacy and job readiness training, counseling, legal advocacy, children’s services, and community advocacy for domestic violence victims. It also organizes workshops and seminars, and social media and ad campaigns to create domestic violence awareness. ⁹

The residential programs include the Mary Lawson Foreman Emergency Program emergency shelter and the Teen Parenting Program which provides accommodations for pregnant and parenting teens. ¹⁰  The Mary Lawson Foreman Emergency Program opened in 1977 when Casa Myrna was founded. ¹¹

The EVA Center is a project of Casa Myrna. It provides support for sex trade survivors and advocates for laws regulating prostitution on the Swedish model, which criminalizes the buying but not the selling of sex. ^{12 13} It became a project of Casa Myrna in 2016. In 2017, Casa Myrna and the EVA Center expanded to include a housing program and advocacy and legal services. ¹⁴

SafeLink is a statewide 24/7 toll free domestic violence hotline that Casa Myrna operates. It responds to over 32,000 calls each year. ¹⁵

Funding

Casa Myrna’s 2023 revenues were $9,461,207 and expenses were $9,275,975. Government grants made up over $7.2 million of these revenues ¹⁶ according to the federal Crime Victims Fund established in 1984 by the Victims of Crime Act and administered by the Massachusetts Office for Victim Assistance. In 2024, Casa Myrna advocated for $20 million from the state of Massachusetts as a bridge fund due to federal funding cuts, which was approved in July 2024. ^{17 18}

Casa Myrna has several long-term donors that focus on supporting the Boston, Massachusetts area. The Anna B. Stearns Charitable Foundation has supported Casa Myrna since 1984 with donations. ¹⁹ It supports “women+ and girls+” as well as environmental causes. ²⁰ Other organizations Anna B. Stearns Charitable Foundation has funded include Bikes not Bombs, the New England Grassroots Environment Fund, the Resilient Sisterhood Project, and The Nature Conservancy. ²¹

The Charles Sanders Trust has provided donations since 1990. The Adelaide Breed Bayrd Foundation has donated to Casa Myrna since 2001. The Lincoln and Therese Filene Foundation has donated to Casa Myrna’s teen parenting program since 2001. ¹⁹

Additional donors include the Bank of America, the Cummings Foundation, the Mary Kay Foundation, the Wyss Foundation, the Boston Foundation, and large donor-advised funds American Online Giving Foundation, Schwab Charitable Fund, and Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund. ^{19 3}

Leadership

Stephanie Brown has been Casa Myrna’s chief executive officer since 2013. She graduated from the University of Florida and became involved in nonprofit organizations supporting victims of sexual violence, domestic violence, and homelessness including Jane Doe Inc., Homes for Families, the Massachusetts Department of Transitional Assistance, and the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center. ²²

Attorney Michelle Donabed joined Casa Myrna as its director of development and communications in April 2024. Previously, Donabed had her own law firm and worked at several nonprofits doing management, governance, and fundraising. ²³

The board president is Dina Scianna, an affordable housing foundation fellow at Eastern Bank. Scianna’s previous positions have focused on community outreach and low-income housing programs at financial institutions. ²⁴