NBC7’s Wendy Fry reports on Generate Hope’s House2Home Campaign to purchase the home they’ve been using to make their work more permanent.
A nonprofit providing shelter, therapy, education and other resources to sex trafficking survivors is raising money to purchase a home for victims.
Generate Hope launched the House2Home Campaign Thursday, on the heels of the release of a study that found a pervasive sex trafficking industry in San Diego County.
Executive Director Susan Munsey said she was very excited about the possibility of purchasing the safe home the organization has been renting for the past several years.
“We have in San Diego County 25 beds for women who have been trafficked,” Munsey said. “That includes three for women who have children. Just three.”
Preliminary research released Monday by the University of San Diego and Point Loma Nazarene University found an underground industry in San Diego County, largely run by gangs, victimizing more than 8,000 minors a year.
Researchers estimate the trafficking brings in $810 million in annual revenue for pimps and what researchers call sex trafficking facilitators.
“It did not surprise me because I hear what the women go through,” Munsey said. “I hear the same things from them about the different traffickers. The same thing (the traffickers) say. The same lines they use. The same tricks they pull. It’s like they go to a school to learn how to do this.”
Researchers found that 85 percent of pimps and sex trafficking facilitators were involved with a gang, some of those gangs with close ties to Mexican cartels, said Dr. Ami Carpenter, the lead researcher on the ““Measuring the Nature and Extent of Gang Involvement in Sex Trafficking in San Diego.”
“Facilitators make about $536,000 per year. That’s about $45,000 per month,” said Carpenter. “And I want to stress that this is a conservative estimate.”
The data collected by the researchers showed significant recruiting of minors happening on school campuses across San Diego County.
“This is a countywide phenomenon not restricted to the underserved parts of the county,” said Dr. Jamie Gates, another researcher. “The schools where we found evidence of sex trafficking were in the North County, Central and in the South Bay.”
At the Generate Hope home, Munsey provides a way out of the life.
Women, usually between the ages of 20 to 25, come to the shelter traumatized.
“It’s a deep wound," Munsey said. "All of the women who come to Generate Hope have Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s been shown that women who have been sex trafficked have Post-traumatic Stress Disorder at the level of returning vets. They also have depression and other anxiety disorders.”
A bill introduced by state Senator Marty Block, now stalled for further study, would increase fines for prostitution clients. Most of those funds collected from SB 776 would be used to fund shelter, counseling, and other direct services and exit programs for victims of commercial sexual exploitation and sexual abuse.
“Some people ask how we can do this work because it’s so difficult. And it is very difficult, but we keep our eye on that prize on that goal and seeing the women succeed,” Munsey said.
She described what a success story looks like: seeing a young woman move into her own apartment, funded by a part-time job as she completes college.
Munsey said one woman is set to graduate from the program in mid-November.
“When we see someone graduating and getting set-up, I just get chill bumps. It’s just so fabulous. It’s so exciting. This is what we work for,” Munsey said.
The property owners of the safe house, the location of which is a secret, have offered to sell the home to Generate Hope for less than the market value of the property.
They nonprofit has already raised $215,000 toward the purchase of the home and need another $100,000.Donations can be made here.
