Center Opens to Help Ex-Prostitutes Adjust

Leaving a life of prostitution isn’t easy.

Former prostitutes often have little education, few job skills and a traumatic childhood to reckon with, according to Jerri Rodewald, executive director of the Mary Magdalene Project, a nonprofit group that provides alternatives to women who have been street prostitutes.

The group provides lessons in living and social skills and group counseling for survivors of physical and sexual abuse. It also assists the women in obtaining high school diplomas.

Until recently, all these services were provided in a group home in Reseda, but now women who have “graduated” from an 18- to 24-month stay in the group home can live autonomously in a transitional living center in Van Nuys.

The recently renovated apartment building officially opened Sunday, marking the Mary Magdalene Project’s 16th anniversary. Already, four women and their children and pets live in the building that will eventually house 11 families and the project’s transitional director, Stephanie Puntil.

Puntil, who for 24 years was a social service provider for gang members, battered women and abused children in Chicago, lives on the premises and serves as a full-time case worker, friend and mom for the women.

The apartments range from approximately $300 a month for a studio to approximately $460 for a three-bedroom unit, Puntil said.

Each woman entering the transitional living center signs a rental agreement and a “covenant,” which sets personal goals and timetables.

The petite Puntil essentially serves as a parent to the women, nearly all of whom were abused as children, teaching them skills such as cooking, cleaning, budgeting and positive parenting. She must let the women live independently while teaching them at the same time.

“You have to let them have autonomy and fall occasionally, like a child learning to walk,” Puntil said. “You’ve got to be there and let them fall, then pick them up and dust them off.”

Of the 150 women who have entered the project since it began in 1980, she said, only four have returned to the streets. About 90% hold jobs, such as steam engineer, bookkeeper, beautician and pet groomer.

For information about the Mary Magdalene Project, call (213) 567-0547.