The Safe Shelter Collaborative: An Innovative Approach to Locating Emergency Shelter for Human Trafficking and Domestic Violence Survivors

Abstract

When your residential program is full, finding emergency shelter for human trafficking and domestic violence survivors can be challenging. Advocates often spend hours calling one agency after another to locate an appropriate placement. The Safe Shelter Collaborative is an innovative technological approach to locating emergency shelter. By sending out a blast alert to certified users within a geographic network, agencies provide faster access for a greater number and diversity of survivors. This article reports on an evaluation of the Safe Shelter Collaborative and the ways it has transformed the process of finding emergency shelter.

Working With Survivors of Human Trafficking: Results From a Needs Assessment in a Midwestern State, 2019

“…One solution may be to use innovative housing programs such as Safe Shelter Collaborative or Sheltered Alliance, which pairs the short-term housing needs of human trafficking survivors with available donors, or establishes a collaborative system to make efficient use of available bed space in social services. 36,37…”

“…One solution may be to use innovative housing programs such as Safe Shelter Collaborative or Sheltered Alliance, which pairs the shortterm housing needs of human trafficking survivors with available donors, or establishes a collaborative system to make efficient use of available bed space in social services. 36,37 Although our needs assessment did not specify whether survivors were in need of legal services as defendants or if they needed assistance with prosecution, research indicates that human trafficking survivors are often arrested and charged with interrelated crimes, such as loitering, vagrancy, drugrelated crimes, and prostitution. 11,35,38 In Missouri, human trafficking survivor-based groups and their allies have lobbied for expunged records/vacated convictions of human trafficking survivors, indicating a need in the state for legal services as defendants.…”