Safe housing helps sex trafficking survivors rebuild in Coastal Georgia

This story includes descriptions of sexual violence.

ATLANTA — Jessica Lamb remembers looking out the window of a suburban house where she lived as a teenager with her first trafficker.

She remembers flicking her cigarette aside as she ran across the street to call the police at a now-abandoned Salvation Army.

When police arrived, an officer spoke to her and the man she’d lived with for six months in Griffin.

“I really wish they would have listened to me and made a report,” Lamb said. “I wish they would have taken my marks that I had on my neck and around my face seriously.”

Instead, she said the officer got her car keys from the trafficker and told her to leave. She went to stay with her grandmother.

Lamb lived with her grandmother and aunt on and off for years, but she struggled to follow rules and often felt like a burden. She said she went back to her parents’ home, trying to “make it work,” but she had a tumultuous relationship with them. With no permanent home, she was vulnerable.

Over the next five years, Lamb said, she was exploited by two more traffickers. She stayed in a shack in the woods, slept in her Jeep in a grocery store parking lot, lived out of an extended-stay hotel and went to jail on charges she later had expunged.

Lamb, now 41, struggled to find a safe place while navigating mental health challenges, addiction and years of trauma.

“You’re not thinking about, ‘Is this OK? Is this illegal?’” she said. “You’re thinking of, ‘How am I going to make it to the next day?’ And there were many times that I didn’t want to make it to the next, but I just kept going.” 

Lamb’s experience is not an outlier.

In a 2016 study conducted by Loyola University across 10 cities in the U.S. and Canada, 1 in 5 homeless or runaway youths were identified as victims of trafficking. The majority of these cases involved sex trafficking.

Federal law defines sex trafficking for people 18 and over as a commercial sex act induced by force, fraud or coercion. In commercial sex acts, something of value, like money or somewhere to stay, is given to or received by someone.

When a minor is involved, proof of force, fraud or coercion is not required.

Homelessness was the most common vulnerability traffickers exploited in a survey of survivors seeking residential treatment conducted by national nonprofit Safe House Project from 2023 to 2025. Survivors reported that housing dependency often kept them from leaving.

Human trafficking is an underreported crime, and it can be difficult to quantify how many instances of it there are in any given place. Still, Atlanta has frequently been identified as a large trafficking hub. Sources told News21 that major highways and a large tourism industry have contributed to pockets of trafficking activity within the city.

Today, there’s a network of programs in the city and across Georgia dedicated to the complex task of housing survivors of trafficking and exploitation. These programs were few and far between when Lamb was a teen.

One, just outside of Savannah, is Tharros Place.

‘Point of vulnerability’

On a June morning, a group of teenage girls wearing comfy sweatpants and hoodies lounged in the den of a 12-bed home in Chatham County. One watched TV, curled up on a beanbag chair. Another tackled geometry homework on a laptop.

The hallway opened up to a large living room with walls covered in colorful art and encouraging messages. A bright pink swear jar sat on the media console, next to a basket filled with prayer cards. A laminated pamphlet tucked next to them read, “Just know, you are not alone here.”

There’s a small adjoining room for therapy appointments, and a closet filled with donated new clothes, shoes and stuffed animals.

Julie Wade, executive director of Tharros Place, said the residents frequently participate in community activities, like prom at a nearby country club. That morning, staff members were planning a pizza and movie night.

‘Most days, not all days, but most days, I think you would hear more laughter here than you would expect.’ 

Julie Wade, tharros executive director

The home opened in 2023 to fill a need for youth survivor recovery care. The program accepts girls ages 12 to 17, many in the custody of the state’s Division of Family and Children Services.

Tharros Place residential director LaToya D. Scott said poverty and leaving foster care without permission — sometimes called elopement — leave young people especially vulnerable to trafficking.

“What we noticed that a lot of traffickers look for, it’s kids that look like they have no connection with anyone,” Scott said.

Safe House Project’s survey found survivors were often runaway youths and those involved with child welfare systems across the country, such as foster care programs or child protective services.

Across 736 cases involving young people, over 27% included a history with foster care, group homes or child protective services.

The organization’s report described the welfare system as “both a point of vulnerability and a critical intervention opportunity.”

Beyond safe housing, Tharros Place residents receive specialized treatment, high school education and trauma-informed therapeutic care.

Staff members don’t use the term trafficking with the teens. “What we don’t want to do is tell a girl that doesn’t believe they’ve been trafficked, ‘You’ve been trafficked,’” Scott said. “That is more trauma. That’s re-victimization.”

Instead, the staff educates residents on healthy relationships and gives them a sense of security they may have never experienced. This is woven into small aspects of the day, like learning how to keep personal spaces clean.

“When you haven’t had a home-like environment, you don’t necessarily know how to treat it,” Scott said.

Throughout the program, Tharros Place is preparing residents for when they leave.

“We’re trying to give you independence, but if we don’t plan for a good discharge for your safe and secure housing, you’re going to repeat it again immediately,” Wade said.

Residents can’t stay at Tharros Place past 18, which is also when people age out of foster care in Georgia.

Some of the teens move in with trusted family members or friends. Others transfer to facilities that provide a higher level of care, such as abehavioral health program with mental health treatment.

Young people in Georgia foster care can choose to receive continued support through the state’s transitional program until they are 21. This program requires them to meet certain criteria, such as having a job or attending school. Scott said not every woman leaving Tharros Place at 18 is ready for those responsibilities, but if they initially decline to participate in the program, it can be hard to get services they need.

“All of them are in different places in their life. All of them need different things,” Scott said. “And as we recognize that, we try to make sure that we get them the services that they need.”

This can look like coordinating medical care, helping residents discover their career goals and teaching them what healthy relationships look like.

‘Beyond an emergency bed’

BELOVED runs two programs for adult survivors in the Atlanta area. One is a two-year residential program. The other provides outreach and services through a community resource hub.

Sarah Scroggins, BELOVED program director and a member of Georgia’s human trafficking task force, said survivors come into the residential program from temporary placements like emergency shelters, or even incarceration.

These survivors are navigating years of complex trauma, which can be both mental and physical. Often, their exploitation began as teenagers, Scroggins said.

“We provide physical safety right off the bat, but, women, it takes them a while to feel safe,” she said.

According to the Safe House Project, over 86% of survivors reported at least one mental health diagnosis — often anxiety, depression or complex post-traumatic stress disorder — and one-third of survivors reported a substance use disorder.

At BELOVED, residents receive psychiatric care, substance abuse treatment, case management and community involvement opportunities.

Scroggins said it often takes longer than two years, the length of its residential program, for someone to heal. Still, dedicating that time to recovery sets residents up to find work and housing, which can be a big struggle.

Scroggins described finding housing as the “hardest piece” for the adult survivors leaving the program.

Survivors may have convictions for offenses committed while they were being exploited that can stand in the way of leases and employment. It’s possible to get certain records expunged in Georgia, but the process takes time and drags survivors back through traumatic experiences.

The cost of living in Atlanta is also rising, Scroggins said, and affordable housing is often in pockets of the city with high rates of drug use, violence and trafficking.

For survivors transitioning into independent living, community becomes especially important. It can mean the difference between independent living and returning to an exploiter.

“Success looks like a woman getting to heal,” Scroggins said. “Getting to a place where they know how to trust a community, they know what a healthy community looks like, getting to choose what their path forward is and getting support in doing that.”

‘Running towards recovery’

Lamb remembers how it felt to be homeless, living in constant survival mode.

She also remembers the times she felt safe — lying over the kitchen sink as her grandmother sang hymns and washed her hair, when getting in the bathtub was unbearable. Drinking Cherry Coke in 24-hour Waffle Houses during times when she had nowhere else to go, finding peace in knowing she didn’t have to leave.

She remembers when she finally broke contact with her third trafficker after he was incarcerated. She was 22.

“I kept running towards recovery, and I didn’t look back,” she said.

After years of work toward safety and stability, Lamb is now a homeowner and a busy mom of two. She had her convictions expunged and can vote.

“You can give people a way out in a room somewhere for the night, but the long-term stability is what is needed,” Lamb said. “We’re talking mental health, we’re talking housing security, affordable housing security, access to education.”

‘You can give people a way out in a room somewhere for the night, but the long-term stability is what is needed.’

JESSICA LAMB

Lamb launched the nonprofit Atlanta Redemption Ink, which helps people who have body markings from human trafficking or gang affiliation cover up tattoos and scars for free. She also leads community education around the U.S. about human trafficking and tattoos.

Through her work, she helps people feel safe in their own skin and get the fresh start they need when applying for jobs and moving into their own place. Her own life isn’t perfect, she said, and healing hasn’t been linear — but the people who make up her support system keep her hopeful.

“There are so many people out there that are just one caring person away from getting the chance that they need, one listening ear, one person that can give eight minutes of their time,” Lamb said.

For help regarding human trafficking, or if you suspect trafficking, call the National Human Trafficking Hotline, available 24/7, at 1-888-373-7888.

News21 reporter Sophie Schaeffer contributed to this reporting.

This report is part of Carnegie-Knight News21’s “Unsettled” project. For more stories of hardship and hope in America’s housing crisis, visit www.unsettled.news21.com.