New Illinois housing facility helps teen girl human trafficking survivors

PALATINE, Ill. (WLS) -- A new first-of-its-kind facility is coming to Illinois to provide safety and housing for teen girl survivors of human trafficking.

According to the Center for Impact Research, at last study there are 16,000 to 24,000 women and children currently being trafficked in the city of Chicago. The majority of them are teen girls with not many places to go for safety. But finding a safe home can be the difference between life and death.

"I stayed in human trafficking for 25 years. I've been shot five times, stabbed over 13 times. So that's just the surface," said Brenda Myers Powell, founder of Ernestine's Daughter.

Powell was just 14 years old when she was taken and trafficked by two men.

"I probably would have died," she said. "I would have died out there in the street."

Now a survivor-turned-advocate, Powell said safe housing is what saved her life but it's not existed in Illinois for teen girls who have been trafficked until now.

"There's no other services in the state of Illinois that allow for them to have a permanent place, a temporary and permanent place to stay," said Carina Santa Maria, executive director of Shelter, Inc.

Shelter, Inc. has partnered with the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services to lead the way in building a $3.5 million, 6,400 square foot housing facility at an undisclosed location for 12 girls who are human trafficking survivors.

"Housing is number one," Santa Maria said. "They cannot be able to get the help they need or even be on that recovery journey until they have a safe place to be."

She said there are less than 500 beds across the nation for this specific population, but soon the girls will get access to a new home and resources like employment skills training and legal assistance. Santa Maria hopes it will change the narrative of what trafficking.

"A lot of times we see those movies and we think, you know, it's that force or fraud that really get somebody involved in a trafficking situation when it's most likely coercion, and it can be by somebody that we know," she said. "The number have likely increased. So much of it is now online that it's easier to coerce them."

"Places like this give you a little more hope that there will be, there will be a way that I can get out," said Powell.

Shelter, Inc. said the goal is to have the goal is to have the housing up and running by July 1, 2024.