I’m continuing my “people who help people in Williamsburg” series by talking about the Latisha’s House Foundation this week. Just like last week’s post on the Avalon Center, I’m not going to show you a picture of this building – I know where it is, but it does not advertise its location or publish photographs. This is for the safety of the women who seek its help. You can learn about this center at its website, which I’m using to provide most of the information in this post. http://www.latishashouse.com/
This is what the website says about Latisha’s House:
Latisha’s House Foundation is a 501©(3) non-profit that provides a long-term, trauma-informed safe house for survivors of human trafficking. The residents in our care acquire the tools to live healthy and productive lives.
Latisha’s House is actually two houses – one in Orlando, Florida, and the second in Williamsburg. Here’s what the website says about how Latisha’s House came to be:
Latisha was a young girl (or so we thought) on the streets of Chicago who had been trafficked as a child and sold across state lines. She was rescued by Elizabeth Ameling, a mom of a then pre-teen daughter, and a team of teenage girls as a part of a church youth trip. They were there in Chicago feeding the hungry and giving out water in the extreme heat.
As they drove to a safe house, Latisha told us she was 25 years old, was HIV positive, had been raped, charged with assault, and hated being on the street. She said that no one cared if she "lived or died" because she was "invisible." Latisha had no identification, social security card, address or education. Her personal items had been taken from her years ago. She was forced to turn tricks, was beaten if she kept any money earned, and had to depend on her pimp for any clothing, food, or shelter. Latisha's life was filled with fear. She had threats of assault, getting arrested, being hungry, too cold or too hot, and no one knew who she was.
Elizabeth and her team arrived at The Dream Center, a safe house in Chicago, where Latisha was welcomed with opened arms. She was told, "welcome home, Latisha, welcome home."
The founder of Latisha’s House, Elizabeth Ameling, has 15 years of experience in working with women who are at risk and who have been victims of sexual exploitation. Mrs. Ameling also participates in stings with law enforcement; she works closely with victim advocates including from Homeland Security, the FBI, local police, and anti-trafficking organizations. As a certified traumatologist by the Center for Trauma Studies at Regent University, and the American Green Cross she brings a trauma-informed approach to victims of sex trafficking, and to members of the community in her trainings and public awareness talks.
The Board of Directors of the Williamsburg Latisha’s House includes some names I recognize from the city, including one member of the Williamsburg City Council.
Latisha’s House describes its services as “holistic wrap-around, trauma-informed services to allow each resident in our care to be productive members of society.”
Its website summaries its services this way:
Trauma Counseling
A trained trauma-informed house manager is available, 24-7. Off-site therapy and addiction counseling is also available through community partners and individualized.
Life skills, life coaching, and job training
Survivors learn cooking, budgeting, financial literacy, daily life, and vocational skills; attend therapeutic fitness, art therapy, flower arranging, book group, mentorship, and life coaching as part of a holistic approach to healing and gaining life skills.
Emergency medical, dental, and psychiatric care
100% of Survivors suffer from PTSD - the same diagnosis as many of our combat soldiers. Latisha's House facilitates emergency and acute care for medical, dental, and psychiatric needs, as well as medical advocacy.
GED tutoring and education
Many Survivors were trafficked as children and may have as little as a 5th-grade education. Latisha's House connects residents with GED tutoring through community partners for survivors. Latisha's House also offers higher education scholarships for its long-term residents.
Victim Advocacy
The women often have charges related to being human trafficked, and/or involved with child custody cases. Latisha's House will provide support and advocacy-- accompanying victims to court, connecting victims with legal services, and/or helping with survivors' visitation with their children.
Identification
Upon arriving at Latisha's House, resident's will receive guidance and support in obtaining social security cards, birth certificates, or a government issued form of identification. Trafficking victims often have their ID taken away or if trafficked as a child, the survivor may have never had the opportunity to apply for identification.
Social Support
Survivors are connected to services related to safety, permanent housing, and personal well-being. This includes the following: Social Services, Veteran Affairs, Victim Advocates, and local non-profits offering social services in the form of food assistance, clothing, permanent housing, personal growth including parenting classes, substance abuse support groups and self-defense classes.
Latisha's House also provides social support services in-house.
Spiritual development
Latisha's House believes in a holistic approach to healing mind, body, and spirit. Residents who come to Latisha's House are given the opportunity to grow spiritually and develop a deeper relationship in their faith walk. This key component of our program contributes to each survivor's success in addition to trauma counseling and other wrap-around services that are offered.
Forever Home: The Hope Village Project
This program will provide extended support to former residents of Latisha's House or other safe house programs, providing low-cost housing in a community setting with tiny houses and/or mobile homes. These tiny homes will have required counseling, volunteering, financial literacy, and support. If there are children reunited with parents, we will require family counseling as well. This program will extend to 3 years, during which time the residents continue to heal and be stable so that they can then move on in the community and be successful, even working towards home ownership.
Latisha’s House receives no government funding, so it depends on monthly giving to help offset transportation costs, emergency medical and psychological needs, prescription assistance, emergency food and clothing, education fees, identification documents such as birth certificates and drivers licenses, and general operating expenses in providing 24-7 safe housing for victims of human trafficking.
Latisha's House depends on community support through both donations and volunteers. If you have the time, talents, and/or resources to provide for any of these needs, the organization would greatly appreciate it. Due to health regulations, they can only accept items that are new, unopened, and not expired. If donating clothing they ask that they are new or slightly used. (MY NOTE: You should not donate something that is in such bad condition that you would not wear yourself.)
The website provides a lot of information about ways to help, but one caught my eye -- Friday & Saturday Fun Nights at Latisha's House.
Drop off a meal, make a homemade meal with our residents, grill out for a night, or even have a bonfire by the fire pit. Our residents love when volunteers come out to spend quality time with them; especially if it's through playing card games, having a movie night, or an in-house spa day.
We have all heard about human trafficking, and it doesn’t take a very sophisticated Google search to find important information. It’s hard to get accurate numbers, but approximately 200,000 incidents of human trafficking per year in the United States. The ten states with the highest rates of human trafficking are Nevada, Mississippi, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Delaware, California, Missouri, Texas, and Michigan. Virginia is not on this list.
Human trafficking can happen to people of all ages and genders and of any race or religious background. Women are often used for sexual exploitation, while men are usually used for forced labor. It is believed that one in five human trafficking victims are children, exploited for begging, child pornography, or child labor.
Victims of human trafficking can be enticed and then coerced through a variety of methods:
Luring their victims with false promises of economic opportunity
Withholding identification, work authorization, or travel documents
Demanding repayment for a real or alleged debt
Using or threatening to use violence
Monitoring and surveillance activities
Paying very little or not paying at all for work
A few years ago I attended a presentation given by a volunteer at Latisha’s House, and she told us about a current resident who had responded to a Craigslist ad about employment in the Williamsburg area. The potential employer sent her enough money to make the trip to Williamsburg from her home (which was a thousand miles away), but when she got to Williamsburg she found herself alone, without the promised job, and dependent on the man who had posted the ad on Craigslist. She didn’t have any money to go back home, and the man kept her isolated, with no means of communicating with anyone, while he used her for his own sexual pleasure and pimped her out to his friends (all occurring under surveillance and in the remote house where he lived). I don’t know how she found her way to Latisha’s House, but it is no exaggeration that Latisha’s House saved her life.
I’ll end this post the same way I have ended similar posts over the past few weeks: if you don’t live in Williamsburg, there is almost certainly an organization in your community that addresses the problem of human trafficking. For reasons that are completely understandable, many of the organizations dedicated to fighting human trafficking fly under the radar. For more information about this problem and ways you might be able to help, check out the website for the US Institute Against Human Trafficking, https://usiaht.org/.
A Google search will identify other informative websites.
Thank you for providing so much important information. The abuse we heap on our fellow humans never ceases to shock me. It’s horribly never ending. So much to do in the world.