Plan to help ex-hookers draws fire in Kansas City

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- When the St. Paul School of Theology announced its move from Kansas City's urban core to Johnson County, Kan., last fall, Eastsiders fretted that the 19-acre campus would become just one more vacant eyesore.

But now that a sales contract is pending, some residents of the neighborhood say they'd almost prefer broken windows and buildings stripped by copper thieves to what's being a planned at the corner of Truman Road and Van Brunt Boulevard.

And that is a center for social service agencies, of which the only announced tenants so far are two groups that would house dozens of former prostitutes in dorms where divinity students once studied and prayed.

"My gut reaction," resident Sherry Ashcroft said, "is I'd rather see it boarded up, with graffiti all over it and weeds up to my eyeballs than this."

The issue is so divisive that the leader of the neighborhood association quit.

Fearful that their property values will plummet and the crime rate will rise once the ex-prostitutes move in next door, distressed neighbors have mobilized. They've distributed handbills, gone on TV and filed a petition at city hall against the re-use plan being proposed by the Kansas City Coalition Against Sexual Exploitation, or KC CASE.

"What we're trying to do is protect our neighborhood," said David Biersmith, head of the Truman Road Corridor Association, "and it's a battle every day."

Not everyone who lives in the area opposes the plan. Several residents turned up at a City Plan Commission meeting last week to voice their support for both the concept and the location.

"There's crime already in our neighborhood," lifelong resident Curtis Urness said. "I don't see how a program helping people leave this life [of prostitution] would cause more crime."

Other programs

Supporters further note the plan involves much more than twin dormitories for adults and youths who became prostitutes to survive, or were coerced into it at as young as age 12.

Other buildings on the campus would house not-for-profits providing a variety of social services open to the greater community, such as job training, drug treatment and medical care. There's talk of a day care and a charter school.

"What I don't want people to think is that this campus would be solely a one-stop shop for victims of commercial sex exploitation," said Steven Wagner, the Washington, D.C.-based project manager.

The plan commission ordered a four-week cooling-off period so KC CASE can firm up financial details and better explain its plan to neighbors, many of whom learned about it only a week before the commission meeting.

That ensures this debate will continue into the fall at a series of public meetings. Ultimately, the city council will decide whether to change the current zoning classification to allow for the proposed re-use.

Wagner acknowledges he has a lot of work to do before then to change minds that are already made up.

"There's been a significant amount of misinformation about this project," he said.

'A noble mission'

You can see where opponents might get the impression that this project all revolves around illicit sex.

KC CASE, the not-for-profit group wanting to buy the campus, was founded three years ago with a single mission: "End violence and mistreatment toward all persons being trafficked for commercial sex in the Kansas City metro area."

All four coalition members have that focus:

* Veronica's Voice, a Kansas City not-for-profit group that helps prostitutes get off the street.

* The Human Rights Office of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, which is committed to fighting human trafficking.

* Renewal Forum, a national not-for-profit founded by Wagner, which works to fight human trafficking, "particularly the commercial sexual exploitation of juveniles."

* Ozanam Pathways, a locally-based charity that provides transitional living services for teens and young adults.

Adding to neighbors' suspicion that the campus would primarily serve ex-prostitutes: The only announced tenants are Veronica's Voice and Ozanam Pathways, and residents wonder how the organization can pay for buying and running such a large operation.

Discussions with other agencies are underway, Wagner said, but so far none has committed to moving in.

Veronica's Voice would house "adult victims of commercial sexual exploitation" for up to two years.

Ozanam would operate a similar shelter for children and juveniles in another building. Most adult prostitutes started out as children, an Ozanam spokeswoman said.

Opponents don't dispute the need and validity of either program.

"It's a noble mission," resident Dale Fugate said, "but we have 19 acres, we have 10 multistory buildings. ...

"I'd like to see something else in there, I really would."

He and other opponents fear that, by providing ex-prostitutes a place to live in the neighborhood, it would attract more of that activity to an area that currently is not plagued with prostitution the way nearby Independence Avenue is.

Some would fall off the wagon and start turning tricks on Truman Road, they say. And what about their pimps?

But Wagner said spillover crime has not been a problem in other cities. "It's a reasonable question, and the answer is no," he said.

Likewise, said Veronica's Voice founder Kristy Childs, women seeking shelter and a new start are not likely to be out selling sex on the side while attending the group's programs.

"They have dreams," she said. "They want something different."

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Information from: The Kansas City Star, http://www.kcstar.com