A Chance at Renewal After Life on the Street

Eleven years of turning tricks to support a cocaine habit had finally caught up with Cathy, who was ready to make a change but didn’t know how.

The South-Central Los Angeles resident had lost custody of her two sons and a daughter to foster care, weighed about 98 pounds after losing nearly 100 and had gained notoriety in the legal system after many arrests. Numerous stints in county jails and treatment centers -- along with a few close encounters with death -- had failed to reach her.

Yet in March 1998, after years of homelessness, Cathy got one more chance.

During a felony hearing in a drug-possession case, the judge offered her a choice: five years in a penitentiary or two years in the Mary Magdalene Project, a privately funded rehabilitation program for prostitutes.

The decision was easy.

Cathy entered the program and graduated three years later. She has been living at the program’s transitional living center ever since. Cathy, 44, has regained custody of her children and now works as a legal assistant for a law firm. “I never thought I would be on that side of the law,” she said, laughing.

“She’s an extraordinary woman that reversed the path of her life,” said Martin McCombs, executive director of the program. “She typifies some of our proudest outcomes.”

For 26 years, the Mary Magdalene Project has sought to turn around the lives of prostitutes by teaching life skills, providing therapy and offering housing and job training in a highly structured program.

The program was founded by the Rev. Ross Greek -- then-pastor of West Hollywood Presbyterian Church -- with a $30,000 grant from a national Presbyterian women’s organization. The program still relies on private grants and donations, which can be made at its website, www.mmp.org.

Each year, the program selects several prostitutes who are 18 or older and committed to quitting prostitution. Before starting, they must go through detoxification. Then, for two or three years, they live in a four-bedroom home in Reseda where they learn how to be parents and role models. They also do volunteer work and find jobs before graduating. To stay, the women must remain sober.

“Your whole life changes because you’ve been out on the street,” Cathy said. “You come to this place where they say you can’t have a cellphone, you have to go to meetings, you have to do chores. That’s my biggest problem: someone telling me what to do. It was very hard for me. I had to change my life and bow down.”

McCombs said it is not known how many women have gone through the program because records weren’t kept when it began in 1980. But 245 women have graduated, according to McCombs. Some dropped out and others went back to prostitution -- facing a bleak future. “If they went back to prostitution, it’s likely they went back to jail,” he said.

McCombs explained why some can’t hack it. “It’s a very controlling program,” he said. “There are expectations, and they come from a great deal of freedom. Change is hard.”

Just ask one current resident, who asked not to be identified. The 19-year-old Oklahoma native, who moved to Los Angeles when she was 15, is going through the program again after dropping out the first time. She struggled with making $20 a week, the allowance provided by the program, after pulling in up to $500 a day on the streets.

“I don’t think I was ready to give up my life,” said the resident, who lasted four months last year before fleeing back to prostitution in Hollywood and other areas of the city.

But after a few months, she wanted to return and escape an abusive relationship with her pimp. “I didn’t know what I had until I didn’t have it anymore,” she said, explaining that she is safe and cared for in the program while getting an education and building skills. “This is a really wonderful program, and not many women get an opportunity to be here.”

Graduates and their families can stay -- as long as they need to -- at a 12-unit apartment building in Van Nuys, a housing facility that celebrated its 10th anniversary this year. It accommodates up to nine families.

“The transitional center really plays a key role in trying to get them on their feet,” said Donna Hernandez, program director.

Although it is unclear how many programs like this exist nationwide, observers say only a handful include long-term housing exclusively for former prostitutes. Directors of these programs say the housing provides crucial support as the women learn to live independently.

“You can’t change your life in 60 or 90 days,” said Patti Buffington, executive director of Genesis House in Chicago, which was founded in the early 1980s. “It’s impossible.”

The women at the Van Nuys housing facility range in age from their early 20s to late 40s. Most are black; the others are Latina, white or biracial. Collectively, they have six children -- from toddlers to young adults -- who also receive therapy. All have their own transportation and either work -- usually in office support roles such as bookkeepers or receptionists -- or go to school. They pay 25% of what they earn for housing and take part in monthly residential meetings.

Graduates can find their own housing when they feel ready. But they can always return for counseling, which many of them do, McCombs said.

Lt. Patrick Shields of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Vice Division applauded the program. When he was officer in charge of the Hollywood vice unit from 2000 to 2003, he said, he referred about 20 prostitutes to the program. “The whole organization was very devoted,” he said, adding that the prostitutes are “either going to sink or pick themselves up through that program.”

Shields didn’t keep track of the women. Yet when he was asked if the program makes a difference, he said, “I think it does. How much of an impact, it’s hard to measure. But if you have one success story, I think you’ve accomplished your mission.”

Certainly, more than one graduate has found success, and many of them give back by working in social services; two have secured leadership positions in the program. Some credit the program’s living arrangement in part for the about-face.

Cathy said living with five other women “taught me how to share, how to stop being so selfish and care about other people. It taught me a lot about dealing with other people, especially females.”

The program, she said, also taught her responsibility. “The Mary Magdalene Project helped me get a part of society back in my life,” she said. “It helped me feel like I was worth something.”