ESCONDIDO — Tucked away in a historic neighborhood is a home with a handful of beds for women who have rebuilt their lives after surviving hardships, trauma and exploitation.
Grace House is a home run by the Alabaster Jar Project, a nonprofit organization that provides housing and resources for survivors of human trafficking and sexual exploitation.
Along with Grace House, the organization runs a resource center that provides clothing, hygiene supplies, support groups and other services to survivors on the nearby Foundry Community Church property.
Now in its tenth year, the Alabaster Jar Project began as a ministry through The Church of Rancho Bernardo until it became a standalone nonprofit in 2013. Susan Johnson, one of its founders, is now the organization’s director.
Johnson grew up in the Oceanside and Camp Pendleton area. As a youth, she witnessed some of her friends join gangs that ran sex trafficking operations or become victims of sexual exploitation. At the time, the term “sex trafficking” wasn’t used, but she knew it wasn’t right.
“This was happening when I was between 12 and 14,” she said. “I didn’t put my foot into that door, but I was very close to it.”
As an adult, when Johnson heard about her fellow church members’ interest in starting a mission project that served trafficking survivors, she knew she had to be part of it.
Johnson soon realized how minimal the region’s resources for trafficking survivors were.
“I began volunteering with North County Lifeline by picking up people from the police department, driving them to emergency shelters as far as National City,” she said, noting that the shelter there only had five beds and a futon. “We were busting our butts to find safe places and seeing women get turned away from domestic violence shelters.”
Survivors of sexual exploitation often face stigmas from others who view them as criminals, not victims or survivors.
“They looked at the women differently,” she said. “They would say, you’re not running from an abusive husband, you’re running from a pimp.”
Alabaster Jar Project has since grown from operating out of Johnson’s car’s trunk to the current resource center and Grace House, which provides a five-bed transitional housing option for women that removes such stigmas.
Grace House is not considered an emergency shelter but a transitional housing program where clients stay between a year and two years, depending on their situation. While the house only shelters women, the resource center serves everyone regardless of gender identity, sexual orientation or religious background.
Amanda Moon Ellevis, a survivor who now serves as the organization’s public relations manager, became homeless after leaving her trafficker. Even though she was safe from her abuser, she struggled to find a job, home, and basic needs.
“When you have no address or access to a shower, it’s really difficult to find a job or home,” she said. “Pulling myself up by my bootstraps didn’t work at the time.”
Ellevis reached out to another organization but was turned away because there weren’t any available beds. They referred her to the Alabaster Jar Project, and she was almost immediately accepted into the Grace House program. There, she stayed for 13 months, during which she found a job and fulfilled her passion for writing by taking over the Grace House newsletter.
She eventually moved into her own apartment and became stable while attending a support group at the resource center every week.
“We’re all survivors there,” she said. “We would share and process our traumas together, and it became an anchor in my healing.”
She wanted to begin volunteering for the organization, but they wouldn’t let her – instead, they opted to pay her for her work.
“Alabaster Jar Project will not let survivors volunteer,” she explained. “They have to be compensated because the organization does not want to create a scenario in which they re-exploit them.”
With an annual operating budget of around $500,000, the operation depends on charitable donations and some grants. The organization recently celebrated its 10th anniversary with a fundraising gala that generated about $28,000 for the program.
Over the summer, Escondido awarded Alabaster Jar Project a $50,000 Community Development Block Grant for its services. This is the first time the organization has received grant money through the federal CDBG program.
Some community members were displeased to see that the Alabaster Jar Project had been chosen over Interfaith Community Services, which provides several services to homeless individuals, including a shelter and recuperative care facility.
Mayor Dane White, who was moved by the Alabaster Jar Project’s mission after visiting the resource center, recently told the Escondido Times-Advocate that the city wanted to give CDGB funding to applicants who had yet to receive the grant. Over 20 organizations applied for the grant.
Interfaith had received CDBG funding from the city for over 10 years. Last year, the organization also received $400,000 from the city’s Covid relief funds.
Recently, Interfaith had to move its 49-bed Haven House shelter into the 106-bed Abraham and Lillian Turk Recuperative Care Center due to an approximately $1 million shortfall in funds.
Alabaster Jar Project has worked with Interfaith and other similar organizations throughout its years of service. For Johnson, receiving the grant was bittersweet due to some of the backlash she faced.
“We were so excited for this grant, but I felt like we couldn’t celebrate it,” she said.
Some also suggested the organization was undeserving of the grant because it is “non-inclusive” of all gender identities.
Johnson also faced backlash following her comments at the Aug. 9 council meeting where the grant awards were announced. There, Johnson had explained that although the organization serves all gender identities, its shelter can only house clients with “female anatomy.” She regrets her words.
“It was my own blunder,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
The organization is now set to receive LGBTQ awareness training from the North County LGBTQ Resource Center.
“I reached out to them after viewing their statements at the Escondido City Council meeting and a few others they made in social media that showed how misinformed they were around trans identities and how they needed to get under the state requirements about inclusive shelters,” said Max Disposti, executive director of the North County LGBTQ Resource Center, via email.
Under state law, nonprofit shelters and transitional housing programs that seek public funding can provide single-sex shelters but cannot turn away or separately house transgender people.
The awareness training is paid through a county grant. Disposti said he hopes to impact the organization, and both Johnson and Ellevis have expressed excitement about beginning the training.
“We want to be more aware of this population who also needs services, and in my mind, we’ve been serving them all along,” Johnson said.
Johnson noted that although the organization primarily served women initially, other gender identities, including nonbinary people and even men, have begun using the resource center’s services.
While the organization also started as a church ministry – and its name is a biblical reference – it is now a standalone organization that does not require religious studies of its clients.
Ellevis explained that LGBTQ individuals, particularly youth, are highly vulnerable to experiencing trafficking and homelessness.
“We cannot serve survivors without serving the LGBTQ community,” Ellevis said. “I think we needed this training – though many of our volunteers are religious, and some have old-school beliefs, if we’re serving the community, we have to serve all survivors… I’m excited to learn.”
