Hookers in the House?
A fellow student at the college is starting an amazing new non-profit organization aimed at taking Vancouver prostitutes out of the inner city and placing them in Christian homes set up as transition houses. In Vancouver, like many urban areas, the lifestyle surrounding drugs and prostitution can get very ugly at times. Many of the women who find themselves in this situation are under the fear-motivated control of pimps who keep them locked up in the trade. Some are held captive by drug habits, and some of these women are literally held captive in locked rooms unable to leave except in order to go to work. Even if a woman wanted to leave the trade, in many cases she would feel trapped by her environment, unable to escape. If she did escape, there still would be no place to go. It’s a fairly big problem without many good solutions, yet this friend of mine told me the other day of a pretty impressive plan…
This student works in the downtown east-side, the poorest part of Vancouver with the highest percentage of drug addicts. This is where all the worst stuff happens. In the process of serving these women and working with them – and calling several of them friend – the student came up with an idea to help them get out. Essentially the idea is to use Christian households, specifically regent community houses with extra rooms as, “halfway houses”, places of sanctuary where the women can spend a day, week or month outside of the dangerous environment. Surrounded by people (hopefully mostly women) sympathetic to their plight, the women can then hopefully move toward a more permanent rehabilitation. The key to success is a combination of a change of environment with a caring ministry hopefully setting the stage for recovery. Now I don’t really know very much more than you do about the whole thing, but take a second to stop and think about it. It sounds like it could really work, doesn’t it?
A few weeks ago an announcement in the Regent Newsletter stated, “Regent Community Houses – Interested in networking with other community houses? If so, please contact…” My Roommate came out, read the announcement, and asked me if I thought the rest of the house would be interested in responding. I told her it sounded really good and I knew that everyone would be on board, so go ahead and give the guy a call.
I’m not sure if she ever called him, but while talking to this guy a couple of weeks afterward I realized the connection between the plan and the announcement. “Networking” was code for, hearing a discussion about the possibility of housing a prostitute in your guest room. Wow. Besides the multitude of funny statements that come to mind from the idea, the sheer magnitude of practical problems are immediately apparent. What about safety issues? Will there be pimps knocking on your door at 3am? What about if men live in the house? Are we walking into areas of temptation for them? Theft? Other problems that are unforeseeable due to our lack of experience?
All valid concerns to be sure; but is that being practical or simply a way of quickly making excuses to avoid taking on a deeper ministry responsibility? I mean, isn’t it somewhat logical to assume that if there were a possibility of moving prostitutes out of dangerous environments and into safer ones, wouldn’t a household full of followers of Jesus be the most logical place? Is there really anything that the believers stand to lose that could outweigh the potential gain for God’s kingdom? Or maybe it should just be the Government's problem. But the government isn’t really doing a very good job right now.
Don’t get me wrong. I'm not a believer just yet (ironic twist of words there). We don't have any free rooms in my house, so it’s not on the table for us. Yet if we did have a space, I am convinced that we would at least have to ask the question and pray about it diligently. I’m not sure where I’d land.
An inherent problem that becomes obvious in this whole discussion stems from the following fact: Christians are not as different from non-Christians as Christians tend to think they are. We are all humans and humans tend to get pretty protective and at times outright hostile when dealing with issues regarding their space. The idea of someone who is untrustworthy, perhaps unclean, perhaps dishonest; perhaps addicted – someone who seems so very different than us – coming into our space can be very terrifying. Perhaps it is rightly terrifying. On the flip side, Jesus came into our space as well; in doing so he created a space for us in His house. Were we not untrustworthy, unclean, dishonest, etc.?
I don’t know.
