Survivors and Advocates Warn Against Temporary Lodging Programs that Expose Unhoused Youth to Trafficking and Abuse
Trigger Warning: The following article contains real-life stories of homeless adolescents that include sex trafficking and violence against women. If you or a loved one need counseling or help, please contact your local crisis center.
Many federally funded programs mandate motel or hotel vouchers for homeless youths. Sex trafficking survivor Helen Stiver of EverFree strongly advises against this practice because these sorts of places are magnets for human traffickers.
In the stark night, beneath the flicker of a swinging neon sign sits a rundown motel with an ominous glow. It does not sport an Olympic-sized swimming pool or a fancy breakfast buffet. The parking lot is a glass-covered concrete playground for criminals. Children splash in puddles as smoke from the nearby refinery wafts over them in clouds. The rooms are dimly lit but bright enough to see the rodents scamper past, moving through the cracks of the walls like electricity.
Why would anyone come here, you might be wondering? And while each occupant in this kind of motel has a unique reason, there is a common theme of social rejection. A shifty motel on the rough side of town is the solitary place where homeless teens can come, no questions asked. There is no need for credit cards or cosigners. Cash is always accepted and even encouraged. Those of us who have lived in these rooms will tell you that residency is costly, especially if you’re homeless, poor, and alone.
Far From Home: Rundown Motels are Epicenters of Violence and Exploitation
There is a room on the lower level with a broken bolted chain. This one belongs to the girl who came alone. She went to sleep a virgin and woke up to a group of men who sexually assaulted her, not because she was a prostitute, but simply because she was there.
The room next door is occupied by a 16-year-old diabetic boy who dropped out of school the week his parents died. Terrified of the abuse he might endure in foster care, he neglects to take his medicine and eventually loses his toes, all the while toiling away in an exploitative employment position where he works “under the table” for far less than the minimum wage.
Cars pull in, and the engines stay on. Nobody ever switches gears to park. This is a place to drop off and pick up where everything’s for sale – sex, drugs, and even humans.
Meet Helen Stiver, A Sex Trafficking Survivor Who Was Trafficked in Hotels
“My experience was over 30 years ago,” Stiver, who now serves as the US Programs Coordinator for nonprofit advocacy group EverFree, explained. “Society’s perception of trafficking was different back then. There was no awareness. There was no understanding. Sex trafficking specifically was thought of as a choice.”
I’m not going to speak on whether or not sex work is a choice,” she continued. “That’s for other folks to debate. Let them decide. But for me, it was not a choice. So, there was a lot of ostracization and a lot of judgment happening between the walls of these kinds of motels.”
There was also a lot of abuse. Stiver said her intimate knowledge of things like this is part of the reason she’s apt to advocate for other homeless young people.
“I feel that I’m well enough recovered to where I can educate and speak out publicly so that those who are recently exiting sex trafficking or homelessness don’t have to bear that burden,” Stiver said, adding, “I think that it’s important for those organizations that are serving trafficking survivors to hear me out.”
According to Stiver and Many Other Survivors, These Hotels Are Not Safe Spaces for Homeless Teens
“Whether it’s direct service provision or intermediary referral type services, they need to be aware of what it means to be survivor-informed and trauma-informed,” Stiver said. “They need to be aware of the way that they provide services to trafficking survivors, especially when we’re talking about housing provisions.”
“Many times, they provide temporary hotel vouchers for people living unhoused,” Stiver continued. “But if you’re providing hotel vouchers to a vulnerable or formerly trafficked homeless person, this might be unsafe because they might be put into a hotel where there are traffickers present.”
The Very Real Threat of Human Trafficking for Homeless Children, Teens, and Young Adults
Traffickers and other violent perpetrators are on the hunt for people who are unprotected, and shifty motels and hotels are the main places they go to find new victims. The problem is so persistent that it affects one in five runaway and homeless youths, who are subject to either labor trafficking or sex trafficking or, in some cases, both, as a result of their perilous position.
Imagine being given a voucher to your own demise, winding up in a dark hotel or motel room with a trafficker, and being tortured for years, perhaps a lifetime. Even those who eventually escape the clutches of their trafficker face unending bouts of homelessness and brushes with the law and society.
“Being looked down upon and treated differently as a result of my experience was one of the hardest things I went through after exiting,” Stiver concluded. “So the way that I choose to help ensure that other people don’t have those same negative ramifications afterward is by giving them a voice through my story and my advocacy.”
Talk To Your Legislators About Protecting Our Youths by Making Housing a Human Right
Permanent and affordable housing and wraparound services are the best solutions to homelessness by far. Temporary accommodations are not only less effective in the long run, but they can even put some vulnerable homeless people in worse conditions by forcing them into environments where they are likely to be exploited.
Talk to your representatives about creating pathways into permanent housing for homeless young people in the United States.
