Prostitution Council report says "Houses Not Handcuffs"

[sam]

Houses Not Handcuffs
Prostitution Report: Jail Doesn't Work
by Sarah Mirk

http://www.portlandmercury .com/portland/houses-not-handcuffs/Content?oid=1922015

The key to cleaning up prostitution in Portland isn't making more arrests or slapping streetwalkers with steeper fines.

Instead, reducing prostitution in the Rose City will rely on finding safe, affordable housing for prostitutes—so says the draft of a report the city's Prostitution Advisory Council spent a year researching and will present to Portland City Council next week.

The 21-person Prostitution Advisory Council, a group of police, citizens, and sex worker counselors, came together last year at a time when many Portland residents were demanding the city take swift enforcement action against prostitution along 82nd Avenue ["Red Light," News, Sept 18, 2008]. A citizen petition gathered 1,500 signatures to reinstate the 82nd Avenue Prostitution-Free Zone (PFZ)—a controversial policy that the city let expire in 2007 after complaints from the American Civil Liberties Union.

In addition to the petition, last fall neighbors were impatient for the city to take a more aggressive enforcement approach. One neighborhood activist, Liz Sullivan, even hijacked a press conference from then Mayor Tom Potter, stepping up to his podium to demand the reinstatement of the PFZs ["Neighbors Slam Potter's Prostitution Plan," Blogtown, Sept 11, 2008]. Instead, Potter convened the advisory council.

Since last fall, citizen reports of prostitution have dropped 43 percent in the Montavilla neighborhood that stretches along 82nd Avenue, according to the report. But an FBI sting in February picked up seven underage girls in Portland in just four hours, ranking our fair city second in the nation for underage prostitution after Seattle ["Confessions of a Teenage Prostitute," News, Sept 3]. Still, it seems neighbors on the advisory council have been won over to a more compassionate approach.

"I really wanted to go after the pimps and johns," says Brian Wong, a Montavilla resident who led neighborhood anti-crime patrols and signed on to co-chair the Prostitution Advisory Council. Wong's view of how Portland should conquer sex crime changed during the year of meeting with former prostitutes and police.

"When you start to talk to these women, you realize pimps are essentially domestic batterers," says Wong. "A jail is nothing but a temporary house for a woman in prostitution. You can't get these women off the street if they have nowhere to go."

The report says meeting the housing needs of prostitutes is "imperative" to curbing sex crimes in the city: "Housing is a basic need, and for prostituted persons, it is controlled by their pimp, boyfriend, manager, partners, or 'guardian' figures charging rent," reads the document.

Studies the advisory council examined show 90 percent of female prostitutes have been homeless, especially juveniles. The US Department of Justice finds the average age at which girls first become victims of prostitution is just 13.

The report also recommends establishing a "john school" to reform people charged with paying for sex, and renewing funding for LifeWorks Northwest's New Options for Women program—which counsels women arrested for prostitution. With 2008's one-year $250,000 grant from the city, LifeWorks counseled 64 female prostitutes. But only eight have been assisted into housing, according to the report.

If a woman on the street wants to get into Portland's rent-assisted public housing, first she will have to wait for the waitlist to even open—a roughly once-a-year event. After that, she would have to wait between one and three years to get to the top of the waitlist, according to the Housing Authority of Portland. Meanwhile, the city has spent $4.98 million on treatment and housing for the city's worst crack addicts over the last two years ["The Secrets Behind the Secret List," News, Nov 5].

Nevertheless, funding safe housing for prostitutes could be cheaper than the current reality: paying for their jail cells. The per-day, per-inmate cost of jailing someone in Multnomah County is $70, and jail lands 92 percent of prostitutes back in illegal activity after their release, according to the report. The council estimates that $10-15 per person per day would cover the cost of transitional housing.

"I welcome any recommendations by this group, and if their conclusion is that a housing-first model would be more beneficial to people in the sex industry than jail then I'm inclined to agree with them," says Housing Commissioner Nick Fish. "But the challenge we're facing as a council is that we're doing triage for 8,000 people in need of stable housing.

"The challenge is [that] today it may be prostitutes, tomorrow it may be 150 people turned away from the women's shelter run by the Salvation Army," Fish continues. "We could probably come up with 8,000 compelling stories on this issue—and each of them are important to me."

[sam]

(Valarie Newman is the woman I co-presented with at the Roots of Change conference a few weeks ago. -sam)

Prostitutes need safe house and johns need a school, Portland advisory group says
By James Mayer, The Oregonian
December 09, 2009

A safe house for women trying to leave prostitution and a "johns school" for men to educate them about the harm they cause would help reduce the scourge along Portland's notorious sex-for-hire strip, a study group recommended today.

Prostitution is not a victimless crime, the group stressed in a report released to the Portland City Council. The average age of girls entering into prostitution is 13. Most come from a background of incest, poverty and family substance abuse. Three out of four have children, most of them taken away by the state.

"A woman's life in the sex industry cannot be considered a choice," Lila Lee, director of the Council for Prostitution Alternatives, said in the report.

The 82nd Avenue Prostitution Advisory Council called for a 10-bed safe house for prostitutes seeking to escape the lifestyle. The housing would be linked to counseling and drug and alcohol treatment. Estimated costs ranged from $657,000 to $913,000.

Multnomah County Commissioner Diane McKeel said she has been working with U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden's office on federal legislation to pay for the safe house.

The advisory group -- made up of neighborhood residents, business representatives, police and community advocates -- also recommended long-term funding for the four dedicated police officers assigned to prostitution on 82nd and Sandy Boulevard as well as doubling the $250,000 a year that the city now gives a program that provides counseling for prostitutes ordered by the courts.

The council suggested establishing a "johns school" for customers, which would educate arrested johns about the risks and consequences of their behavior. It also recommended treating johns like sex offenders under the law.

The city did away with its so-called prostitution-free zones in 2008 that banned women arrested for prostitution from the area. Instead, the city now places women convicted of prostitution on probation that includes a restriction from high-vice areas and a requirement that they attend a treatment program run by Lifeworks Northwest called New Options for Women.

Calls to 9-1-1 regarding prostitution have declined 39 percent in the Montavilla neighborhood along Southeast 82nd Avenue in the course of a year, said Mike Crebs, commander of the Police Bureau's East Precinct and co-chair of the advisory group.The report also recommended that the city explore alternatives to the street design of 82nd Avenue that contributes to prostitution, such as frequent traffic lights, slow speeds and no barrier between sidewalks and the street.

Jenny McGibbon from the Sex Workers Outreach Coalition testified that the city needs to help women escape poverty, not just prostitution.

McGibbon argued for an approach that gets women into housing first, rather than linking housing with treatment, the approach favored by the advisory council. And she said Lifeworks should accept women who are voluntarily trying to get out of prostitution, not just those mandated by the court.

Housing Commissioner Nick Fish, noting the disagreement on housing approaches, said he would get "the right people in the room and talk about what should be done and how to pay for it."

Mayor Sam Adams assigned Fish and Police Commissioner Dan Saltzman the job of coming up with an action plan for implementing the recommendations.

Valerie Newman, a former prostitute, testified that if she had been offered these kind of programs, she would have gotten out of the life sooner.

"And if I exited sooner, I would have healed the scars and my body and mind much sooner," Newman said.

It's tough to see the way out when you have no place to go, she said. "How can you see clearly about a new life if you're in a doorway?"