Funding approved for ex-prostitutes' halfway house

PROSTITUTES looking to leave the streets behind just got some good news: City prisons officials have agreed to help fund a halfway house intended to help women break the cycle of prostitution.

The $214,000 approved will fund salaries, training and some supplies for one year at Breaking the Cycle, a program University of Pennsylvania nursing professor Kathleen Brown designed and partnered with the Rev. Michelle Simmons to run at Simmons' halfway house in Germantown.

"This is going to be a blessing," said Simmons, who has run transitional housing for ex-offenders since 2003. Simmons' halfway house in Germantown - Why Not Prosper? - opened in 2006 and has room for up to 23 women.

Brown and Simmons launched Breaking the Cycle there in October, but Simmons has been working without pay and relied on foundations, fundraising and resident fees to cover operating costs. She plans to use the city money to hire a full-time manager, social worker, house monitor, case manager and secretary.

With an Ivy League professor at the helm and ex-addicts and ex-prostitutes running day-to-day operations, Breaking the Cycle is an unusual program. But it's not Philly's only halfway house dedicated to rehabilitating prostitutes.

Dawn's Place, a residential shelter for sexually exploited women, opened in 2009 and can house up to nine women.

And in Bucks County, another such home, called The Well, opened this month with room for four women (although none have stayed there yet), program director Karen A. Kutzner said.

The Well is a program of Worthwhile Wear, a nonprofit that trained sexually trafficked women in India to make jewelry, bags and other wares. Worthwhile Wear opened Freedom Boutique and Worthwhile Thrift in Pipersville last November to give The Well's future residents a place to work, Kutzner said.

Such rehabilitative programs are needed more now than ever, numbers show.

Prostitution arrests in Philadelphia have risen steadily in recent years, from 923 in 2009 to 1,420 last year, according to police data. Most of those charged were prostitutes (1,095 last year), although the number of customers arrested has more than quadrupled - from 71 in 2009 to 319 last year - as city police have stepped up "john" stings.

Many prostitutes grapple with addiction, mental illness, poverty, unemployment and other social problems that keep them stuck on the street, Brown and Simmons have found.

Why Not Prosper? will serve as a classroom for Penn researchers to see what works - and what doesn't - in helping women overcome sexual exploitation. Penn has kicked in $10,000 to fund Brown's "outcome studies," in which she will measure everything from recidivism to residents' efforts to beat addiction and other problems over the next few years, Brown said.

"We want this to be sustainable and replicable," Brown said.