JANUARY 26 • 2023 | 15
meals together as well as a living room,
sitting area and dining room. The homes
also feature eight large double-occupancy
bedroom suites, each with a bathroom.
The basement features another sitting
area with a television, exercise equipment
and a room with donated clothing available
to residents in the program. There are also
private rooms where women meet with
therapists several times a week.
Since becoming a resident of Sanctum
House in November 2020, Samantha’s life
has transformed. She has learned to take
care of herself, gotten help in receiving her
Social Security card and a government-
issued identification card, received mental
and substance abuse counseling, worked
retail jobs and opened a checking account.
“Outside of rehab, I knew I needed a
sustained, longer program to save my life,
”
Samantha explained. “
And the minute I got
here, I felt loved. The survivor women who
work here are like sisters. They taught me
how to survive and love myself. There are
always women here to listen and help me.
”
Above all, the most important thing
Sanctum House has given her is a sense
of her own self-worth and the knowledge
that she is deserving of love. Working with
relationship therapists, she restored ties
with her mother, who she learned was also
sexually abused, as was her grandmother.
Sanctum House also has an apartment
building on its property housing four
heavily subsidized apartments where
those who have finished the program
live until they can transition to complete
independence. Samantha expects to move
into one of these apartments this spring.
As a survivor, Samantha has begun to
share her story and speak out at schools,
houses of worship as well as at medical and
dental offices to help people recognize the
warning signs of trafficking and abuse.
“When I came here, I had not seen a
dentist in so long I had to have many of
my teeth pulled and replaced,
” Samantha
said. “Now, when I go out telling my story
to different groups, including those in the
medical and dental fields, I tell them that
one way you can tell if someone is being
trafficked is by examining their dental
health.
”
Since it opened in 2018, Sanctum House
has served more than 100 women like
Samantha and is supported by government
and private foundation grants as well
as individual donations and pro-bono
services.
GETTING A FRESH START
Sanctum House Founder Edee Franklin is
proud of the strides this organization has
made and looks forward to
widening its ever-expanding
reach of partnerships
throughout Metro Detroit.
“Human trafficking has no
boundaries as to age, gender,
race or religion,
” she said. “It is
vulnerability that is the culprit
for its victims.
”
Franklin said even after they recover,
there are still challenges ahead for women
like Samantha, who may have accrued
a criminal record or a bad credit score
because of the things they had to do to
survive at the hands of their trafficker.
For them to truly get a fresh start, they
must have these records wiped clean and
have more resources made available to
them for job training. She pointed to the
recent signing of the Countering Human
Trafficking Act of 2022 by President Joe
Biden as an encouraging sign.
“Most of the women who come to
us have been on the streets and have
misdemeanors or felony convictions,
”
Franklin said. “Think how tough it is then
to fill out that section of a job application
that asks if you’ve been convicted of a
crime. So, in our next steps of advocacy,
we have partnered with law firms and legal
professionals and even organizations such
as the Joseph Project to help expunge their
records.
”
Michigan Senate President Jeremy Moss
(D-Southfield) said recent actions taken by
Gov. Gretchen Whitmer that
include pardoning the crimes
of several trafficking survivors
at the end of her first term
could indicate that the state
legislature is preparing to move
in this direction. Moss said
there is bipartisan support for
introducing new laws that protect people
while they are being trafficked — such
as training those in the hotel and motel
industry to detect red-flag activity going on
in their establishments.
Moss is hopeful that the new session will
see several pieces of legislation introduced
that will educate multiple industries
— including the financial world — on
detecting patterns that reveal whether a
business is involved in trafficking as well as
helping trafficking survivors expunge their
criminal records.
“With her series of pardons last
December, the governor has taken a lead
on this, ensuring that those who have been
victims of human trafficking or domestic
violence and, as a result, have been charged
and convicted of affiliated crimes can truly
see justice,
” Moss said.
“People who are trafficked are put in
incredibly difficult circumstances. We need
to recognize them as victims and give them
justice. This is the track we need to go
down as we move into the new session in
the Legislature.
”
If you suspect that any child or adult is a victim, or is
at risk of becoming a victim, call the National Human
Trafficking Hotline at (888) 373-7888. If the individual is
in imminent danger, immediately call 911.
Edee
Franklin
Jeremy
Moss