BALTIMORE, MD (Tuesday, November 14, 2023) - Today, Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (MONSE) Interim Executive Director Stefanie Mavronis announced $325,000 in grant awards to nine organizations working to support trauma-informed services for human trafficking survivors through the agency’s General Fund grant allocations for Fiscal Year 2024. These funds will help integrate the efforts of community-based partners into the City’s broader anti-human trafficking efforts in partnership with the Baltimore City Human Trafficking Collaboration.
Mercy Medical Center, Salvation Army, Araminta Freedom Initiative, and City of Refuge Baltimore will each receive one-time $50,000 awards. HER Resiliency Center, Drink at the Well, Turnaround Inc., Let’s Thrive Baltimore, and Asylee Women Enterprise will each receive one-time $25,000 awards.
Grantees are required to submit monthly invoices with supporting documentation, quarterly performance reports on results, outcomes, and impacts.
“Co-producing public safety in partnership with our community-based organizations is central to MONSE’s mission to address human trafficking in its totality,” said MONSE Interim Executive Director Stefanie Mavronis. “We all need to come together to make a difference in what often seems to be an insurmountable issue and to truly make that difference we have to prioritize the needs and experiences of survivors.”
MONSE’s commitment to directly financing community-based organizations working to address human trafficking issues, many of which have never received City funding prior to the Scott Administration, is expressly outlined in Baltimore’s Comprehensive Violence Prevention Plan. To date, the agency has awarded 32 awards and approximately $1.23 million in funding to organizations supporting survivors of human trafficking, sex trafficking, and/or labor trafficking including LGBTQ+ and Latino survivors.
"As Co-Chair of the BCHTC, I am proud to witness the transformative impact that the Anti-Human Trafficking award has. This crucial initiative has been instrumental in our fight against human trafficking, providing essential resources to victims/survivors and combating human trafficking,” said Councilman Kristerfer Burnett, District 8, and Co-Chair of the Baltimore City Human Trafficking Collaborative. “Together, we are making significant strides towards eradicating this heinous crime and creating a safer, more resilient community for all our residents. It is just one tool in our toolbox, providing vital resources to the organizations that fight tirelessly for the victims & survivors of exploitation.”
Convened in 2017, the Baltimore City Human Trafficking Collaborative (BCHTC) is a diverse group of Stakeholders working in a collaborative effort to combat both sex and labor trafficking in the City of Baltimore by raising awareness through education, law enforcement training, and media campaigns; supporting both State and federal investigations and prosecutions of traffickers; and supporting human trafficking survivors by providing them access to quality services through a victim-centered, trauma-informed approach. Baltimore ranks 14th in the nation in calls per capita received by the National Human Trafficking Hotline.
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