investigativevoice.com

By Regina Holmes

A pregnant woman wakes up on the floor of a dark, boarded-up house, lying on a thin blanket with a coat covering her swollen belly. She gets up and steps around feces and condoms, and tries to figure out how to start her day. She walks a mile in the cold to an office where she is greeted — perhaps with a hug — then given food and a hot drink. She stays there all day, fills out lots of forms to get help: a place to live; drug treatment for her crack addiction; a job so she won’t have to keep selling her body to strangers just to eat.

But at the end of the day, despite their best efforts, the staff regretfully informs her she has nowhere to go.

“We called around everywhere…the governor’s office, the mayor’s office…no one could find a place for her,” said Jacqueline Robarge, executive director of Power Inside, an advocacy group for women in Baltimore. The organization helps women who have recently been released from jail and works to prevent them from returning. Despite explaining the woman’s precarious predicament to numerous people, “No one could find a place for her,” Robarge said.

The woman leaves and comes back the next day, and the next day after that. Finally, a month later, Power Inside found help for the pregnant woman, whom Robarge praised for her persistence and determination to change her situation. The woman eventually secured a place to live and went on to have a healthy baby. She was lucky, Robarge said, pointing out that another one of her clients wasn’t as fortunate: she was recently killed.

PANEL DISCUSSION ON PROSTITUTION

Robarge was one of several people on the front lines who participated in a panel discussion on prostitution and human trafficking Monday evening in downtown Baltimore. Co-sponsored by the Office of the State’s Attorney for Baltimore City and the University of Maryland School of Law, the panel discussed the many challenges in getting — and keeping — prostitutes off the streets. Drug addiction; a history of sexual abuse; lack of education and job skills, and homelessness are but a few of the challenges facing prostitutes that must be overcome for them to lead productive lives.

“There are 1,200 prostitute arrests annually in Baltimore City,” according to Jennifer Etheridge, an assistant state’s attorney. Baltimore City’s State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy and her staff formed a Prostitution Steering Committee in September of 2007 to address the “revolving door” problem: The same people were being arrested, then sent to jail for 30 to 90 days…enough time to lose housing and jobs, so they were reverting to prostitution to survive, Etheridge said.

Jessamy's office created the Prostitution Diversion Program on Aug. 17 for people charged with prostitution. The voluntary program is part of the city's Early Resolution Court, which operates at District Court in East Baltimore and offers accused offenders an alternative to trial and the option of getting their record cleared. People on probation or parole aren’t eligible. A state grant for the Prostitution Diversion Program was just extended through Sept. 20, 2010, Etheridge said.

The program creates an Individualized Service Plan (ISP) for each participant. The tailored plan addresses a person's individual needs — which could range from housing, bus tokens to get to court, or enrolling in drug rehab. The 90-day program is designed “to get people back on track,” Etheridge said. People who complete the program, an occasion marked with a "graduation" ceremony, have the option of extending the program for another 90 days. (One client has already requested an extension.) After completion, a person's case is nolle prossed.

COMMON DENOMINATORS: DRUGS, UNEMPLOYMENT

Etheridge said 228 people have been on the court dockets, charged with prostitution, since the program began in August. Of those 228, she said, 90 percent were women (many of the men were transgenders); 49 percent had never married; 42 percent had minor children at home; 62 percent were on food stamps — and 100 percent were unemployed.

“Many of these people have never had substantive jobs,” said Sue Diehl, a clinical resource manager in Jessamy’s office who works in the program. Participants’ ages range from 18 to 55, Diehl said. Housing is not a pressing need for many — “Most of the people we see do have a place to live” — but drug treatment is definitely an issue, she said.

“Most of them truly and honestly need drug treatment. But in a city hobbled with drug addiction, rehab slots for inpatient and outpatient treatment aren’t easy to come by — especially with state, city and private-sector budget cuts.” Lou Takacs, public safety programs coordinator with the Washington Village/Pigtown Neighborhood Planning Council, noted that one drug treatment center in the city just changed its nine-week program to only 10 days — far too little time to treat a drug addiction, he said.

And the hurdles to getting someone into drug treatment can be even simpler, Diehl said. Yet many of the participants don’t have a government-issued photo ID or a birth certificate — and don’t have the money to obtain one. But that’s where Diehl and her colleagues can help.

“We have to start at ground zero,” Diehl said. “We have 90 days to try to get a few things done.”

GEARING UP FOR JOHN SCHOOL

Chris Serio-Chapman, bureau chief of Community Risk Reduction Services, voiced her department’s support for the program.

"The City Health Department is very committed to the idea of a Prostitution Diversion Program," she said.

Serio-Chapman wrote the curriculum for the forthcoming “John School,” an educational program for men charged with soliciting a prostitute. “You wouldn’t believe how many other john schools there are in the country,” she said.

The five-part curriculum covers legal issues; health education (many prostitutes have serious dental issues, serious health conditions and chronic health conditions, she said); addiction; and negative effects on the community. In addition it explores solicitation from the perspective of the prostitute.

“The curriculum was truly a collaboration,” she said, noting that community members gave input. She also credited fellow panelist Sidney Ford, executive director of YANA, a group that helps prostitutes. Although the original plan for a john school years ago called for a fee of just $25 for johns — “There is no way we could do it that cheaply,” Serio-Chapman said — the current plan is to charge $250. Johns can pay even less if they agree to submit to STD testing at a city health clinic, she said. Either way, the price is a bargain compared to a john school in Roanoke, Va., that she said costs $1,500. Serio-Chapman said the teaching materials are already printed and ready to go.

“We’re ready to start, we’re just waiting for the Attorney General’s Office to give us the go-ahead.”

She added: “We do expect the johns we have will not be from Baltimore City.”

Etheridge explained that some neighborhoods (notably Pigtown) have started tackling the problem of prostitution on their own, with residents jotting down the license plates of cars cruising or picking up women. Residents are instructed to not directly confront anyone. Instead, the license plate information is passed on to police, who send a letter to the registered owner of a car noting that it has been spotted cruising in an area known for prostitution.

“We find it's most effective if the car is registered to the wife,” Etheridge said, as some audience members laughed.

SUPPORT SOUGHT FOR TRANSGENDERS

When the panel opened the floor to questions, Cydne Kimbrough, executive director of GLASS (Gender Learning Advocacy Support System of Baltimore) said the city needs more services for transgenders, and appealed for help.

She pointed out that many of the transgender people she assists don’t even have IDs showing their proper names. She described having to drive a homeless client to Philadelphia to get assistance.

Diehl also said transgenders are “not well-served by the current programs in place.

"We have not been as successful with the transgender population," Diehl said. Unlike most prostitutes, drug addiction is “not necessarily their No. 1 issue.

“We have to get with other agencies to see what we need to do for them,” Diehl said.

One audience member pointed out that there is no temporary or transitional housing for transgenders in Baltimore, although Philadelphia has five and Washington, D.C. has four.

When asked by another audience member when Baltimore would get such a facility, Jessamy said: “We’re taking the first steps. We need to have the community behind us as we address these issues that are important to us all.”

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