Press Clippings

Turning Corner At Street's Hope (Women help other women out of life of prostitution, drugs and drinking.)
Linda King, North Denver Tribune
04.06.2006

HIGHLAND 5:00 p.m. on a Monday afternoon and two women from across town bustle into the sparsely furnished North Denver apartment. They are loaded down with boxes and bags. They beeline their way to the kitchen, and out comes dinner. Homemade.

These “church ladies” from Smoky Hill Vineyard Church contend with rush-hour traffic every Monday in order to provide the half-dozen or so women and a handful of youngsters with a good meal. The women who partake of the largesse from Smoky Hill are in need of this sincere TLC. They are making their way out of prostitution, or other involvements within the “sex for sale” industry with the help of “Street’s Hope.” Participants in the program meet up at the North Denver location every Monday and throughout the week.

Programs like Street’s Hope are breaking new ground, since there are few similar programs. At Street’s Hope women who have lived on the hem of society are supplied with the basics – food and clothing and shelter. The program partners with other area organizations throughout the city in order to offer an assortment of services to help women turn their backs on the sex for sale lifestyle and begin anew.

“Linda” is five years clean and sober. She’s off the streets for good. She has her “dream job” at Street’s Hope – 30 days into what she feels she will do for the rest of her life. She is a bridge—a human one. A bridge, that for prostitutes, represents a death-defying crossing over the abyss of prostitution, of addiction and self-annihilation.

Linda’s life is stability. It is, today, unlike anything from before. She is no longer the wrecked child that watches as Mom brings in man after man on that treadmill of dependency and dysfunction. Gone now is four years on the streets – Colfax, and crack cocaine. Turning tricks, to buy the room, the drug, the drink. “Rape, guns, knives, homeless – a mess”, she says – “total shipwreck.”

Narcotics. Arrest warrants. County jail time. Arapahoe House, inpatient “Detox” – 21 days. Losing her own small children, carted away by social services, for good. Devastation. Drug possession, arrest warrant, evade warrant, caught, handcuffed, sentenced…locked up, State Prison, Pueblo.

Then, eight months later, back on the streets one day, “out by a trailer court,” she says, she hit the bottom of the bottom. “I was turning tricks, with a little Bible in my pocket.” Life on the streets had her in its iron grip, but there was perhaps just this on little beam of light way out at the farthest end of the longest tunnel known to mankind.

“When I read the Bible,” she says, “I could see the way God sees me.”

To understand what happened to Linda, maybe you have to believe in miracles. Still turning tricks, still drinking and using, she said in spite of the pitch black of her existence she would read a passage, and “feel better encouraged.”

The eddy of hopelessness surges up and down through the human traffic of Colfax Avenue. That was Linda’s home. Ceaseless, 24 hours a day. It seems in that whirl impossible to escape. But, Linda recalls believing, off and on during those last months on the street, with her little Bible and wisp of hope, she was “loved by good, and something good (was) going to happen to me.”

And it did.

She met Street’s Hope founder Leanne Downing. Clean and sober – yes – after some time in state-run-programs, Linda was finally free of substance abuse. But the coping and life skills that get a person through breakfast, lunch and dinner – into bed and up the next morning – no. “All the issues that came cropping up,” recalls Linda were ingredients for relapse and potential disaster. Through Street’s Hope she latched onto all the re-habilitation and began building her life’s skills toolbox. The program provided counseling and therapy in the areas that were threats to Linda’s clean and sober future. “I’d always bel ieved,” she said, “that sex was the solution with men, the catch-all for any problem.”

Street’s Hope marshaled a new set of beliefs. 20 women like Linda are immersed into the 2-3 year program. They are guided toward “all-encompassing life changes” by individual mentors and group support. They need a realistic life-plan – so some participants, through Street’s Hope, pursue a GED or even post-secondary education – and along the way the program provides assistance such as child-care assistance, tutors and additional educational resources. Women who have unflattering work histories and criminal records get a hand-up through the program finding and keeping a job.

The program’s licensed counselor specialized in sexual issues and abuse. In some cases one on one counseling extends to spouses and children. A supervised 9-5 day shelter houses women and their children. The mentoring program places each participant with a compassionate woman who helps transition them into a functioning and productive life – replete with social and independent living skills.

The program has some paid-staff – Linda, as the new program director, among them. But behind the scenes the 1779 hours of logged time by 138 volunteers tells the story of the breadth of reach that Street’s Hope has encouraged throughout the community. It turns out that the human-bridge from a life of hopelessness into a life of promise is joined firmly together by volunteer that fund raise and mentor and give rides; provide dental work and technical assistance; remove tattoos; volunteer accounting services, financial support and help with the facility’s overall development.

And on Mondays, bring dinner.

Other News:

:: Turning Corner At Street's Hope (Women help other women out of life of prostitution, drugs and drinking.)
:: We Know That People Can Be Redeemed
:: Escaping the night: Agency offers path out of prostitution