Courtney's House [bonus]

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Here's the reality of missing youth in a sad reality, the reason why you all don't see it. So if you're listening to this right now, I want you to go on DC's website, police website and look for missing kids.

And I'm missing children that come up.

I'm going to tell you right now, ninety percent of the boys and girls I'm in my program. The hard thing is we can't tell you who because these are still open cases.

So it's hard when it's trafficking.

The homicide detectives termed the cases the little girl cases. This child was laying on the side of the road.

I wouldn't go no way, I would call up my house.

Those first five murders should have been a huge warning bell for the police.

We just want to know what happened.

This person must have saw that. They were thinking that maybe it's just one person, and he says, uh, they need to know.

This is me.

I thought that they would catch him.

I thought it was just a matter of time.

I'm Celeste Headley, and this is Freeway Phantom. Over the course of this season, we've covered the murders of eight young black girls that occurred in Washington, DC between nineteen seventy one and nineteen seventy two. Six were confirmed victims of the Freeway Phantom and two were unconfirmed. In talking about each of these cases, we've uncovered bigger systemic issues at play, like racial bias in the media and police response.

Whenever you talk about missing people, you better address trafficking because it's always going to come up.

In twenty twenty two, twenty five thousand children were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children as runaways. The Center reports that one in six of those kids were likely victims of child sex trafficking.

Anytime a young person is missing, they can fall victim of sex trafficking, they can fall victim to physical abuse.

This is important, whether.

They ran away on their own or whether they were abducted.

It's so important.

And I don't want to minimize structures in the family. And voluntary when the person leave voluntarily, don't mean he left voluntary. It's coercion going on from the pimp. And Tina's going to get.

Into all of this.

Henderson told us about Courtney's House, a DC based organization that works with survivors of childhood sexual exploitation. The organization receives dozens of referrals every year. For this bonus episode, we sat down with its founder, a domestic sex trafficking survivor, to discuss the issues currently facing other survivors and the work that her nonprofit does to advocate for and support them.

My name is Tina Front, executive director and founder of Courtney's House, is based in Washington, DC.

The mission isn't.

To rescue right, is to get survivors a place of community and encouragement to help them get it out the life and that they learned the tools so they.

Won't re enter the life.

It's not about saving people. What the hell that's got job. I can't save you, but I can help you and lead you.

To the water and encourage you to drink it.

That's what I can do without judging.

As a trafficking survivor herself, Tina decided to devote her life to helping others escape exploitation. She joined advocacy groups fighting to support other survivors, but it wasn't easy, and her own journey out of trafficking wasn't quite over. After years working in anti trafficking nonprofits, she considered going back into what she calls the life.

I actually was in a very bad place, couldn't make no money, correctly lost jobs.

It was crazy doing all this stuff. Want to see in the Heroes of.

Water that still I'm doing good because I wasn't supposed to be there. So I went out on the track. This is like two thousand and seven, So I went out on the track of track. It's like where you go, right if you want to sell yourself. I'll never call it the sex one because I never thought it was.

So.

With that being said, it's Chicago. It's one of real winner. It is literally five degrees outside, you know, it's people out. But what I was paying attention to was I'm just gonna walk around and see if any pimps out here.

It's a pemp track, and it was the car start following me.

It was a pimp.

So I'm like, shit, I can't go home because he following me. So I'm like, I'm about to cut through the alley. I hear this sound and I'm about to run because I think that it's a wreck. It's I'm about the hall. But then I'm like, that's not a wreck.

So it was this girl, it was.

Like fifteen, hiding behind the dumpster. And then I realized like that Pip was also looking for her. So I was like, hey, I'm about to help you.

So I did.

And at that time, like I really couldn't find anything in Chicago, you know that really worked in trafficking or really did what they said for.

A place for her to go to.

But I was able to talk to Foster Care and like find this placement and then I realized I'm supposed to go back to DC.

Teni's calling was clear helping survivors like herself get back on their feet, but she still struggled to find her place within the system. Her previous experience is working for domestic trafficking advocacy groups left her feeling burned out and exploited.

I didn't want to start my own organization.

And when I say that, that's because I was at another organization and being a survivor is actually pretty hard in this movement. Being at this organization, it was difficult. I worked ninety hours a week, took care of my mother, and also had two small children at that time. And when I left that place, I was drained. I was mentally drained. So I was feeling pretty down. And as a survivor, I felt you sing that, I felt like

I felt that, and that's crazy because it was off.

Of my teas of what happened to me that it was created off of.

But I was feeling pretty down. So my mom at the.

Time was like, look, you gotta start your organization, Like I want you to start my your organization.

She's very religious and I.

Said, uh uh no, that's not no girl, that's not the science.

Two weeks after that, I get a call from the foundation that used to find the organization I was with from the housing so they funded this. So they do iran it and it came to me and said we have a grant coming out you should apply for it. Got the grant was one hundred and twenty thousand ain hand, no staff. So I said, well, why don't you do with team to know how to do street over reach. So we started with street over reaches like I started

Mirrors getting into the neighborhoods themselves, showing up in these communities. Her willingness to meet people where they were helped establish Tina and her volunteers as friendly and supportive faces in the communities.

What made me feel good at night. Like what really made me feel good was that you would see people, they would pull them out and move on past and smile and they would say things because you have to bring a message that's you for them. This is not you get in one situation and then you out. We had a youth I first met her at thirteen when they started doing raids. She didn't come to me until she was fifteen, but I used to see her at the raids. And what happened was most of Barby firls

After months of hard work securing funding, five oh one C three status and establishing community relationships, it was time to find a home base. Tina settled on a house in the Congress Heights neighborhood of DC. This would become Courtney's House, which opened in two thousand and eight.

My youngest daughter's name is Courtney and my oldest daughter's name is Shaney. For the housing was going to be Shay and Courtney's House, but I didn't name it. My mom left that in her will the name, and she left me a small amount of money to star Courtney's House.

Courtney's House works with youth survivors of trafficking. They come to the program through referrals and many of them have been on the Missing Children registry. Tina and everyone who staffs Courtney's House had built a robust community in the DC area, connecting with many of these missing kids who might otherwise be forgotten by the system.

So if youth are missing, there's two parts of that story. If they're currently missing right now, foster care, others parents, they still refer them to me.

I still look for you from mine. There are sites.

But more importantly, most of our kids, Norman and people who are in the life you all, we all know that it's the same people. So that's my first start. And because I have a relationship with them, we can work with the police and help in that sort. Is because I usually have more information than the police do, So that's one. And I know a lot of different places where people put people, so.

That's one too. Henderson Long and I've been thinking a ways where we can say things.

So behind the scenes I do email Henderson long and say who's in our program or not and if we need their help, but publicly he cannot give that information.

Henderson and Tina agree that when legal terms like trafficking are turned into buzzwords through media firestorms, the risk of misinformation that comes with the heightened detention is high.

The way I kind of break down a few words so that we can understand modern day trafficking, trafficking. These are buzzwords we've all heard. So the reason why they came up with trafficking that confuses everybody. Think of the other things that are connected to trafficking, right, drug, trafficking, oregan trafficking, Guys, it's a government word.

Government doesn't make.

Up new words for things.

They don't.

They added to one.

So then it confused all of you because it's created by the government and lawyers, not by people. So what that meant is the charge of trafficking. So that can mean you walker to came here today to interview me and I and.

That's what I told you.

But I locked the doors, took everything, and I forced you either to clean the drop in center, force you to have sex with somebody against your will. You're over the asia eighteen just barely, so then I have to prove any trickery, any fraud. So trickery, how did I trick you to come here?

Fraud? I lied about something.

And then you're over the age of eighteen, so I have to prove that you didn't choose it.

If you are twelve or under.

The age of eighteen, then you don't have to prove any force of fraud. So that's what trafficking is.

Now.

The next thing that confuses people is a pimp and a trafficker. The reality is a pimp and the traffic is the same. Pimp is a trafficking charge. They don't get a pimp charge, they get.

A trafficking charge.

That's the confusion, right because we try to separate it because the TV glamorizes pimps.

Oh they're just fun. They had a pimp slab.

They fun.

It's so fun.

But it's not, Tina says. The business of sex trafficking is much more complicated than most people realize. It can take shape in various forms, influenced by gender, ethnicity, and a number of other social and cultural factors.

I want to break down real quickly so you all can understand the four forms of domestic sex trafficking. Right, there's pen control, most people just talk about that. There is family control. Since the pandemic, forty two percent of our youth family control. The next thing gain control, which you see a lot here of our Latina population, so you'll see MS thirteen in eighteen street Los Locos, so that'd be the most popular. And then of course the boys. And the reason why the categorize that way is.

Because different you go do different things.

Right, you're not traffic the same. So it's very difficult with the boys because what boy wants to say they were sex traffic sexually abused without unfortunately the African American community thinking their game.

And I'm just it's that's the saddest piece to me.

Tina points out that it's not just a misunderstanding of the terminology hurting the movement, but also a misunderstanding of how to combat trafficking as well. Throughout this season, we talked about how the twenty seventeen hashtag Missing DC Girls went viral. What began as a way to raise awareness of several cases involving missic black and brown teenagers quickly led to complications for the DC's police Department and organizations like Courtney's House.

But they got everything wrong.

One it was just girls and not all the boys that were online missing as well, who were also in my program.

I'm like, wait, it's a whole section on the boys.

They didn't understand the trafficking and didn't even reach out to people to help them understand. They just like hash egg and not. We were furious, our kids was furious coming to the center, like not understanding trafficking also made the kids angry and having trauma. They were literally telling me, like they always do, Miss Tin, you need to call them I love them because they think I have more power than I have. And they're like, you need to call them a tellone because it's misinformation.

It's not true.

You heard the cause when you leave out a whole gender, So the real the kids are missing, like right now, that is a quick that lasted for a few.

Months, child a couple of months and.

Then that's it and no one cares and the list has grown more than it was and.

That's what it did. It hurt. And again with the boys, it's more boys missing right now than girls.

But we're not talking about that hashtag nothing.

And this begs the question, if more young boys are missing than young girls, why aren't they receiving at least an equal amount of attention.

They don't want to believe the trafficking good boys. That's why I think it is. I really think is they don't like I have to convince people, which doesn't make sense, and the way I say it just to make them think always is this. Why do we think we know that boys are abused just like girls, So why would we think, oh, I'll just abuse them but not profit also.

Done like say it out loud. It don't make sense right.

But the problem is the boys are the perfect you know why they look down The girls will the boys won't.

Tina says racial disparities are another hurdle in the movement to help traffic teens. These disparities are present in the legal system, in policing, and even in institutions meant to provide support the nonprofit organizations. She says, Courtney's House is fighting against that and trying to set a better example.

I'm part of whole court.

Hope Court in DC is a specialized court for sex trafficking, so I'm part of that. I don't believe in a court system that you should go into a court system. I'm on it so they can get the right services. At the same time, Courtney's House is trying to shut it down. Why because it's all youth of color, And yes, Caucasian kids are traffic here.

They come to me a different way.

They come to me byby firls do through therapists you are, and they're at private, very well known private schools in the area. But because I trained therapists, it always comes that way. The police returned them home to give them a therapist, and then they come to me. It's not that way for you, fo A. People of color are black and brown. Yeah like that if you look right now. Most of the organizations are Caucasians that work on trafficking, that have houses, and most of them are faith based.

Most of them when you go on.

Their website, will also tell you and no shape because God led me to this. But God led me to this to be sure I had skills. But they say I just prayed on it all that and God gave me a house. I've never seen it because they call me all the time. I've never started a housing the day of my life. I don't know what to do, but God put in my heart to do this, and I say, in that right, I said, well, God, I've also probably told you.

Contact people and contract people that know what they're doing, so.

They don't partner with me. They want to steal my information for free. They always tell me how they don't have money for it. So you think these are the places I will refer to any of the black youth, and also all the programs they go to they want to leave because of the racism, other kids teasing them that are Caucasian, the staff not saying nothing.

The racism is throughout this movement.

It's very difficult.

And Tina solution to get involved in every aspect of the movement, from working on policy to training judges to implementing a curriculum on domestic sex trafficking in the school system.

I will tell you if you talk to anyone in this area, they are going to say, Tina, do everything Hanti you have to, because one needs the other. I started a youth policy group and it's funded and our youth get paid. I don't believe in these things where they ask the youth and give them twenty five dollars gift cards to get seventy five dollars every week and one hundred dollars for all politicians you know they talk to.

First, we worked on because they really wanted to work on the.

Not legalizing prostitution in DC, so we were able to block that bill. And right now we're focusing on foster care, change some policy. Then I am the first faculty survivor African American for the National Judicial of Judges Training Center, So we train judges on like how to identify and not arresting. So I focus heavily on don't arrest because actually, because they're judges, were all over them. Okay, I just want to tell you how many of them are like, you know what I do? I just put her in

I really feel like it all has.

To be a community of understanding what's going on in our own neighborhoods and what's affecting our kids who are getting good grades, who go to good schools in the area. Things about grown people manipulating, so of course any one.

Can get manipulated.

We have to work on five hundred things of changing laws. If we didn't change laws like we have to write, because we have to still do the work and support them.

Tina says.

Approaching the issue holistically like this makes a huge difference because, unlike many other similar organizations, Courtney's House provides support that lasts four years down the line.

Think about us is several long term program We have people right now that are at college and surrounding areas doing well, went through college, maybe when it became you know, dentistry work or chefs that we were able to help. The thing is I get to see the growth, which I love. We go to their events. I get to see that they're getting in college. So some of the things that we did for two of our youth that got into college and are going away, we were able to get a grant and pay for books.

Y'all know how expensive books are, so we were actually able to do that.

Because we have a fund for scholarships and school items. We're going to go with one of the youth because she's in care, so we'll be going with her and buying items and setting it up. We helped pick out her list of what she thinks she wants to do right now. So when we say a family, I get to see all of y'all get to see their.

Children live healthy.

You find a need that they need, and you make sure you do it.

That's what I say.

After sitting down with Tina, she agreed to give us a tour of Courtney's house. It's a large, two story house with five rooms, a communal kitchen, and a spacious living room. We started at the front door, working our way through the house as she walked us through how it works.

So Courtney's House, let me kind of start from the beginning real quick.

We're dropping center. So a driving center is not housing.

So the popular misconception is everybody just need housing and we can't provide services because they need housing.

Like that doesn't actually make sense. So the reason why we're.

In a house is because I always tell you this is like their house right there, a center. We just happen to work out it here. So I think that's important for a community. But also a lot of our youth do have placements. You know in foster care has placement, so they do, some don't. And then here in DC, so youth age go to twenty four in DC, which is good.

That's because they had specialized housing.

And what was happening in like the regular over eighteen houses is they were being sexually assaulted, they were being retrafficked. So DC had to like do something different, right, So our ages here are eleven to twenty four. So again it goes up, so we can find housing for people who need it because of the youth at that past here, so more people provide housing. Even though they provide housing in these places, say we accept sex traffick king, they

At the beginning of Coordina's House almost twelve years ago.

Twelve years ago.

So with that being said, when you come I'm here, you're signing right. The other thing is we have because of the young population. Every day we have your activities, So we have a calendar that we have with different activities that the survivor's service coordinators do, so we don't say case managers that coordinates house. So if day there's an activity we have one on ones. One on ones is counseling, but no kid wants to be like, I can't wait

And look how it's just artistic they are because.

Girl, I can't ain't not them around none.

So this is some of our work from some of their things.

We have a lot of no competitions. Won't play with the no.

And then Thursday we unfortunately had a we fortunately we had a pool day, so you know, kid games, light mintos and sharp and you know, and I think saying these things and are hide and seek competitions here will tell you the young population.

So when I say I work with youth, I don't know why people think the.

Higher age when like our average change is between eleven and seventeen.

Next, we moved into the downstairs kitchen which leads out to the backyard.

Okay, so we eat all together.

We have a dropness center eight that cooks every day.

She's putting a new menu up.

Holda turned my legs on.

She's putting a new menu up. So that's not here.

But we do have all our babies, you know what their allergies are and such here too.

We had some.

Stuff donated and when it was those high winds.

It tore up our little umbre looon. But this is our back game. We do all of that was donated to. We do cookouts and stuff for the kids.

When it's not a hundred degrees, they like to do their on the ones outside.

Walking back inside, Tina tells us how COVID nineteen has impacted their services, including how they do meal times.

We're open right now since because of the pandemic two days a week here Tuesday and Thursday.

Twelve to six.

So we say they like to call it dinner, but it's like lunch and really dinner whenever people come towards stands, so it's really two meals today. But nothing so here you're not allowed to use cans to process foods, so actually everything is clicked from scratch, even the chicken. NOI kets, everything clicked from scratch, just so they can learn what fresh food is. And I mean the kids, y'all. I still got to force them to eat vegetables. So we

To eat things to introduce.

But Thursday I have food from another organization at barbecue for the kids.

So that was like a treat.

Chipotle like donate, so we get a lot of food donation.

I'm good at free.

Tina has set up the lower as a hangout area for the kids.

This is the basement area.

Okay, so there's two bathrooms, once upstairs, once down here with a shower so people.

Do take showers. We have all this stuff.

They love being down here, and then more artwork and items for the survivors as well. Gangs you have, like I said, gang competitions, washing and.

Drying, so people are allowed to wash clothes.

I have a ton of things so they're also able to get all the toiler trees things. We have clothing donations as well, and that's another bathroom.

Tina says working with so many kids can be challenging.

They have to clean every two hours here. I mean I work with kids that do not believe in getting fascinated. Out of seventy two, we have four youth. That's why we couldn't really come in because people were getting COVID. No one stayed in the house. I mean, it's wasn't the story at all. So I have to do a thing that we're all fascinated, but all the kids aren't. So we still take them down the street. There is a test site, so we take them once a month. I mean our work with cares go. You can't take

And it's the quick one so that they'll know. Oh, and movies.

We have a screen, so we usually put something up and it's usually movies and shows like we've been watching Grown Ish too, because I love some of their topics, you know. So and then it's a discussion about it over food.

I like that, and I make popcorn for scratch because won't go like a wave.

While walking us around the second floor offices, Tina takes us through the price system that's meant to encourage participation in counseling sessions.

Remember they're talking about the one on one survivors.

So every here we say survivors, and I actually don't like when people say survivors and victims, Like nobody wants to be a victim.

So you were surviving when you were out on the street, and.

That makes them want to tell you and not say that they were a victim because then you don't want to talk about You want to be stronger than that. So survivors, so they have a grand goal. So the grand goal when you get your whole chart kind of feel can be like getting your hair done braided. Boys love getting their haircuts. So one of the one, you get one whole punch on your car complaining more than your car weekly one on one we're on the special treats.

So then you get to pick from grab baggs that we have of items.

There's a whole bunch of stuff and you'll see a lot of phone things we got do it because.

Those go quickly.

Complete three consecutive weeks of one on ones and you win a swag bag.

Then you have like another bag with things they probably would like and want that they can win that.

Complete four conservative weeks of one on ones and you'll earn what your grand goal is.

We have big il ticket items for the winner.

Like real ug boots and big ones for going to all your items. We have a lot of like boy boots and things and clothes for them as well, and some some slash for both boys and girls.

So we got some good prices.

To earn these prizes. She has each person pick various goals to work towards.

Each child is different, so goals could be things like that sleeping without a night light because of their nightmares and how to work on that. It could be learning how to say no to people, not getting a car with somebody, So those are some of the Beaconning goals.

These are not.

Goals like school and get straight eggs.

If I can get them to go to school, I'll be happy. So that's a goal. Went three days a week like amen.

So yes.

Courtney's House is a crucial institution in the Congress Heights neighborhood, and the work they do extends from the DMV area through the rest of the country. Every day, Tina and her crew are fighting diligently to help traffic teens and eradicate racial disparities in the missing children's system. The work is tough, funding can be hard to come by and

You know, I think the.

Great thing about Courtney's House is that you can support from anywhere.

Www dot Courtney's House.

We're official ig so on Instagram, we are Official Courtney's House.

Guess what, y'all we got a TikTok.

We don't show the kids' faces, but Official Courtney's House. Follow us on TikTok. We have TikTok wars every day with the youth. That's how they alls from one prizes. So there are a few things you can send some prizes. We have an Amazon list.

Do you want to know how sixty youth eat food quickly?

We go through snacks boxes daily, so we have a full food program.

You can donate and help with that, and that is a true need. We really do run out of food.

We take field trips with our youth.

We have a.

Witchelift because we do a lot of art projects and I'm telling you our kids are artists.

So there are some things.

That people offer online We actually had a cartoon artist offer some free cartoon design online with kids and they loved it. So think about what you're good at, think about what you can do out there, and think about what you can do here because you don't have to do direct services. There are so many things you can do and help and feel an impact at Courtney's house.

Freeway Fantom is a production of iHeart Radio, Tenderfoot TV, and Black bar MITZVAH. Our host is CELESE. Hilly. This episode was written and produced by Noemy Griffin. The show is written by Trevor Young, Jamie Albright, and CELESE.

Hilly.

Executive producers on behalf of iHeart Radio include Matt Frederick and Alex Williams, with supervising producer Trevor Young. Executive producers on behalf of Tenderfoot TV include Donald Albright and Payne Lindsay, with producers Jamie Albright and Tracy Kaplan. Executive producers on behalf of Black bar Mitzvah include myself, Jay Ellis and Aaron Bergman, with producer Sidney Foos. Lead researcher is Jamie Albright.