HELPING PROSTITUTES ESCAPE STREET LIFE

Today, Audrey Chambers works full time as a data-entry clerk. About two
years ago the 36-year-old San Francisco resident worked as a prostitute.

Then, she was addicted to alcohol and crack cocaine; today, she's clean and
sober.

Chambers turned her life around with the help of PROMISE, a San Francisco
nonprofit group that tries to get prostitutes off the streets and into
productive new lives.

PROMISE -- which stands for Prevention, Referral, Outreach, Mentoring and
Intervention to End Sexual Exploitation -- is led by project director
Maureen DeBoer with the help of a part-time staff member and about a dozen
volunteers.

Some of its clients are referred by courts or social agencies. Many others
are recruited directly from the streets. About two nights a week, PROMISE
workers go to the Tenderloin or Mission to post flyers about the program
and talk to prostitutes. They also give the women packets containing
condoms, lubricants and bleach for cleaning needles.

"We view prostitution as a very violent environment that women are forced
into and kept in through violence and lack of other options," DeBoer said.

PROMISE, headquartered at 1095 Market St., offers a three-month program
that provides counseling, support, referrals and advocacy.

"Our goal with each woman is to create an exit plan" based on her needs,
DeBoer said.

The process starts when a woman contacts PROMISE and goes through an
interview. The woman is asked about her experience in the sex industry and
about substance-abuse problems.

"About half the women say they were destined for prostitution," and the
other half see it as a temporary situation, DeBoer said. Either way, the
most important thing is to help them see that there are alternatives.

After the interview, the PROMISE counselor and woman decide on the most
important needs -- including housing safely away from her pimp, recovery
programs and child care. The woman is referred to agencies that can help.

The woman is asked to attend a three-month series of group counseling
sessions on such topics as incest, domestic violence, pimps, the impact of
prostitution, substance abuse, personal responsibility, HIV and sexual
assault.

During those sessions the woman also develops her exit plan: steps she will
take to get off the streets. Among them: job training, interview skills,
recovery from substance abuse, returning to school, reconnecting with
children and family, eating well and opening a bank account.

After the woman completes the program, PROMISE workers remain available to
help.

"It's a long process of recovery," DeBoer said, adding that she is seeking
grants to offer more support groups and open the office six days a week
instead of two.

PROMISE serves about 100 women a year -- all at no charge. Funding -- about
$75,000 a year -- comes from donations and grants.

Half the women served in 1996 had not gone back to the streets three months
after completing the program, and "all the rest had made significant
progress toward their goals," DeBoer said.

Some of the women do so well that they return to PROMISE to help others.
Others, like Chambers, speak to community groups about the program and
their experience as prostitutes.

Chambers, like others, started on the road to prostitution through survival
sex -- trading sexual favors for housing and food, mostly in Oakland. She
connected with a pimp around 1983, when she was in her early 20s.

"I was still very naive," she said.

Later she worked for pimps in San Francisco and Los Angeles. She thought of
them as boyfriends, but they were the ones who were calling the shots "and
I was still the one out there hustling," she said.

After going to PROMISE, she was referred to Ozanam, a San Francisco
recovery program. She also got a place to stay through Bridgeway, a
Salvation Army program in San Francisco that provides transitional housing.
And she attended a computer class.

PROMISE helped her write a recsumec and find job leads. It also referred
her to A Miner Miracle, a San Francisco organization that helps women make
the transition to work by providing clothing appropriate for interviews and
a beauty make-over.

"I'm eternally grateful to PROMISE," Chambers said. "My life had become
such a vicious cycle." She left the streets because "I decided that I
really wanted to live, and that (prostitution) was not living. It's very
dangerous on the streets. The money isn't worth it."

Now she serves on the PROMISE board of directors, the first graduate of the
program to do so. She is determined "to help more girls make the choice to
get out of that vicious cycle," she said. "It's either straighten up or
die."

Prostitutes have a mortality rate 40 times greater than the national
average, DeBoer said. They're subject to abuse, assault and untreated
health problems. Most of them work for pimps, who exercise violent physical
and economic control over them, just like a batterer.

The violent assault of a 19-year-old prostitute who was beaten in the head
with a hammer and dumped in the Bay last fall shows the dangers prostitutes
face, DeBoer said.

The suspect, Jack Bokin, 54, faces 22 felony sex offenses stemming from
attacks on three other women, but a Municipal Court judge reduced his bail
to $65,000 from $500,000. He was released in February pending trial on
those charges.

"This case really illustrates how prostitutes are discriminated against in
the criminal justice system," DeBoer said. "They're seen as unworthy
victims who consent to whatever job hazards come their way. "The only
positive thing (in this case) is that it's created a dialogue to talk about
how vulnerable street prostitutes are," DeBoer said.

)1998 San Francisco Examiner