Drop-in center opens for child victims of sex trafficking in downtown San Diego
The nonprofit Olive Crest hopes to use the day center as a site to build trust with children who are being trafficked in order to help them get out of the situation when they are ready.
Written by Kate Morrissey, Edited by Lauren J. Mapp
Tucked away in an unassuming building in downtown San Diego, a drop-in center just opened to support children who are being trafficked.
Olive Crest, a nonprofit that works with foster families, is launching sites across Southern California intended to create safe spaces where young people caught up in human trafficking can go to find food, rest, therapy and other support services. Southern California, and San Diego in particular, is known as a hotspot for trafficking, according to the county.
The goal of the drop-in center is to build trust so that when the children are ready, staff at the site can help them to get out of their situations, CEO Donald Verleur said.
“These kids have been lied to,” Verleur said. “They do not trust adults. They do not trust institutions.”
Olive Crest has clusters of apartments to offer to children ages 16 to 18 who ask for help leaving human trafficking situations, Verleur said. A “house parent” lives in one of the apartments and survivors live in the others.
The nonprofit can also place younger survivors with foster families, he said.
Olive Crest asked journalists not to publish the exact address of the center to protect the children served there. Children will find out through word-of-mouth, he said.
“The grapevine with these kids is intense,” he said.
The nonprofit announced the new site last Wednesday with the help of Padres pitcher Jason Adam.
Adam, who has four daughters, said that he and his wife heard someone speak at their church about the issue of child sex trafficking.
“It just wrecked me,” Adam said.
“When you hear that in such a beautiful setting where everyone should be really living the dream — I mean, this city has everything — that there's tons of kids being exploited sexually at age 13, it can be paralyzing,” he added.
About 90% of high schools researched across San Diego County reported cases of sex trafficking, according to San Diego Trafficking Prevention Collective.
Alfred Guardado, head of the county Child and Family Well-Being Department, said that social workers in his department have identified 50 children so far this year who showed signs of exploitation.
Tracy Prior, chief deputy district attorney for the county, said that the age of sex trafficking victims is shifting younger. Her office has seen children as young as 13, she said.
Geanie Franco, commander of the San Diego Human Trafficking Task Force, said that the majority of victims are from San Diego County. She said the region needs more resources to offer to the children that her task force helps.
She said the task force has already helped 29 children this year. Last year, it found 47, she said.
Lily, 21, said that Olive Crest had helped her transition out of sex trafficking. Her mother was deported when Lily was young, and her father was addicted to methamphetamine. As a teen, someone her friend met on Instagram pulled her first into modeling, then pornography and then sex trafficking, she said.
“I didn't know if there was a future for someone like me,” she said.
She said Olive Crest gave her hope. She now has her own business reselling on Amazon, she said.
Verleur said Olive Crest has already opened similar sites in Los Angeles and Orange counties and plans to expand the program to seven sites by the end of the year.
