College of Social Work
98 A National Exploratory Study on Housing Services for Survivors of Human Trafficking
Lydia Altamiranda and Lindsay Gezinski
Faculty Mentor: Lindsay Gezinski (Social Work, University of Utah)
Abstract
Human trafficking involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act. Every year, millions of women, children, and men are trafficked worldwide. When survivors enter a recovery and reintegration process, housing is a top priority for these individuals. Unfortunately, little is known about the effectiveness of current housing services and how they affect survivors. The purpose of this mixed-methods study is to identify the most effective practices for housing survivors of human trafficking in the U.S. The first step of the research was stakeholder mapping, which helped identify organizations across the United States that offer housing for survivors. This involved searching through each state to find organizations that provided housing to human trafficking survivors. We identified 422 organizations through various search engines, including Google, Bing, and Yahoo. Then, a “heat map” was created to show the saturation of housing services throughout different states. This showed that the western coast (Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada) had much higher saturation than the rest of the country. Utah was the least saturated in the U.S. with only one organization offering housing for human trafficking survivors. Of the screened housing organizations, 74.21% offered emergency housing, 18.20% provided transitional housing, 4.50% offered residential housing, 2.71% offered short-term housing, and 1.36% provided long-term housing. This research is crucial for researchers and organizations to implement strategies that will help survivors of human trafficking. While long-term housing is the least common form of housing offered in this sample, the literature suggests that long-term housing is the most successful type of housing for human trafficking survivors. Future research is needed on causal factors related to housing programming availability, as well as the effectiveness of various housing types for human trafficking survivors.
Human Trafficking
Human Trafficking refers to “a crime that involves compelling or coercing a person to provide labor or services, or to engage in commercial sex acts” (UDJ, 2023). In addition to this, the exploitation of a minor for commercial sex is also human trafficking. There are different types of human trafficking, including sex trafficking and labor trafficking. Additionally, victims of human trafficking can be anyone, “regardless of race, color, national origin, disability, religion, age, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, socioeconomic status, education level, or citizenship status” (UDJ, 2023). There are several consequences of human trafficking. Several studies showed that “depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD), and self