MUSKEGON, Mich. -- Reported sex trafficking cases in Michigan are among the top 15 percent of states nationwide, according to The National Human Trafficking Hotline. While there are no local facilities to house survivors and keep them safe long-term in many counties, one Muskegon organization is working to change that.
Since 2006 The Hope Project in Muskegon has been raising awareness on sex trafficking and helping more than 60 survivors with recovery including counseling. Yet their organizers say there is no drug rehab facility or long-term housing facility to keep survivors safe countywide.
Recently the advocates built their next project, Hope Village: a facility where The Hope Project will provide sex trafficking survivors schooling, in-home care, counseling and a safe undisclosed place to live and restore themselves. Currently organizers are still fundraising the roughly $300,000 they will need to fund Hope Village for its first year in operation.
"We need help," said Mindy Osantowski, The Hope Project advocate, author and survivor.
"We need help to be able to produce this home, and to be able to effectively be able to not only rescue them, ‘cause scenarios have come up where we’ve been able to rescue them but have nowhere for them to go, and that is the saddest thing."
To help raise funds The Hope Project is hosting its second annual Masquerade Ball on Saturday, Nov. 4. Starting at 6 p.m. at the Fricano Event Center. It will be a formal costume event with a silent auction, D.J. and hors d'oeuvres.
"We need somewhere now, yesterday, that’s the truth of it," said Erin Kilgo, The Hope Project event coordinator, ambassador and mentor.
"If we get a girl or boy who has been taken off the streets, removed out of a situation of sex trafficking, there’s nowhere for us to put them to keep them safe, to keep them out of the dangers of sex trafficking."
