Shante Duncan recently bought a house in North St. Louis, a two-story home on Maffitt Avenue surrounded by many similar homes that stand vacant. Duncan isn’t planning to leave the house that she purchased vacant, but she isn’t moving in, either. Instead, she and the nonprofit organization she founded are converting the house into a space where teenage girls in need can recover from sexual abuse.
Duncan plans to open the house this spring as the Joan B. Quinn Safe House, a home for girls between the ages of 12 and 17 who have been sexually trafficked or sexually abused. Unlike many similar spaces, the house will not have a time limit on how long the clients are able to stay. Duncan wants it to be a true home, not just another shelter or agency.
The house falls under the umbrella of Duncan’s larger non-profit, SHERAH, or Sisters Helping Each Other Reach a Higher Height. SHERAH hosts a program called The Love Project dedicated to encouraging self-love and empowerment among young girls of color. Its circles currently serve 300 girls in five school districts.
The Love Project’s meetings often become a space where girls share deeply personal information, Duncan said. Some of the youngest participants began sharing with her that they had been sexually abused.
As Duncan looked into the resources that were available for those girls, she found that most safe houses were available only to adult women, or women with children. Only two or three places in the city could take on adolescent girls, she found – and those have long waiting lists.
“It’s a shortage of safe spaces in terms of housing for girls in the community,” Duncan said.
Duncan plans to partner with city agencies that have long lists of girls who need a place to sleep. Once her safe house opens, it will be able to host up to seven girls at a time. She said the only accreditation process is through the City of St. Louis. “We have to meet the zoning requirements and garner support from the community residents,” Duncan said. “If we desire to be state-accredited, that is a different process.”
The location was previously owned by another non-profit that used it as a home for women working to get off drugs. It is already completely furnished, and Duncan and her husband were able to purchase the home outright.
SHERAH has a board of directors, but Duncan is so far the only employee. Most of the organization’s budget to date has come out of pocket. Duncan has worked as a Development director for several nonprofit agencies in St. Louis and said she has “an extensive fundraising plan in place” for the home, including seeking grant support, crowdfunding and hosting events. However, she said, “If we never received a dollar to run this house, we would be able to still successfully run it.”
Girls who come to the safe house will attend school, receive counseling, and participate in women-led programs, from art therapy to meditation. Duncan said there are no specific medical requirements for such a home, although, she said, “we are partnering with other agencies to provide all counseling and medical support for the girls.”
They will also live with a house mother who will ensure they get home-cooked meals and contribute to household responsibilities.
“It’ll run like a home,” Duncan said. “We want the girls to feel like they’re at home, not at a shelter.”
Part of the Joan B. Quinn Safe House’s mission will be to provide a safe space for girls who have experienced domestic child sex trafficking. Though the term is an umbrella for any time a juvenile exchanges sex for goods or services, many victims of child sex trafficking are introduced to the sex trade by third-party traffickers who target economically vulnerable children, according to human rights organization Rights4Girls.
SHERAH is also home to a Human Trafficking Task Force that aims to raise awareness of the impact of human trafficking on black girls.
“Trafficking is a huge issue in the City of St. Louis,” Duncan said. “It has a direct impact on young black girls, mainly because they are poor. Black girls are more likely have experienced some type of sexual abuse at younger age than any other girls, and so it’s important to us not that only that we share that information with the larger community, but that we provide a safe space for the girls.”
Before the house can open, SHERAH will need to collect signatures from neighbors consenting to its presence in the neighborhood. Duncan said this is an area where she has an advantage: She is from the city and knows the area and the people.
Duncan began her career as a journalist, with a degree in communications from the University of Missouri St. Louis; she worked for The St. Louis American for a time. After interning with a few nonprofits, she got a job as the St. Louis Area Food Bank’s development coordinator and has been in nonprofit work ever since. The genesis of her own organization came from a need she saw in her own life.
“I was, at the time, a young black girl in my early twenties, had just gotten out of a bad relationship, was feeling very low about myself,” Duncan said. “I knew there was a part of me that was very powerful, very strong, very confident, but I didn’t know how to bring her to the surface.”
Duncan created a group meant to simply provide support for herself and a handful of other women. But it kept growing, and in 2016 she converted her informal group into a formal nonprofit.
“The mainstream society may overlook us because they’re gonna go to an agency that has a bigger name and budget,” Duncan said. “Women on the ground know about the work that we’re doing, and that attracts them to us.”
For more information on SHERAH, visit http://www.sherahmovement.com
