Enhanced Housing Opportunities for Survivors of Trafficking (EHOST)

The Asian Association of Utah’s (AAU) proposes the development of the Enhanced Housing Opportunities for Survivors of Trafficking (EHOST) Project. Currently AAU offers a variety of housing supports including emergency hotel vouchers, short-term rental assistance (up to 6 months), and transitional housing support for 10 sex trafficking victims through an executed master lease contract. However, trafficking victim requests for access and assistance for housing outweigh AAU’s current capacity and funding, and the existing transitional housing program has several limiting factors.

The proposed EHOST project will address these limitations by providing trafficking victims a survivor-driven process to safe, victim-centered transitional and long-term housing options, enhanced voluntary support services, follow-up services, and increased community capacity. EHOST will achieve this by: 1) Reducing barriers to housing access for 30 trafficking victims through support of a designated Housing Specialist, 2) Reducing barriers to safe and stable housing through 80 instances of housing assistance, 3) Connecting 30 victims to voluntary support services to address barriers to housing stability, and 4) Connecting 20 victims to voluntary follow-up services.  The EHOST project also increases the community’s capacity to respond to human trafficking through coordinated education, and strategic partnership activities. EHOST will achieve this by 1) Providing human trafficking trainings to 250 individuals, and 2) Engaging 40 collaborative partners to increase a coordinated community response. Project deliverables include services, programmatic reports; resource lists; surveys; training presentations; onboarding material packet/toolkit; and a MOU/collaborative partner list. 

The project will be based in Salt Lake City, with statewide reach, and accessible to victims of all forms of trafficking. Services will be provided in-house and through a network of community partners. Key housing partner, Housing Authority of Salt Lake City (HASLC) will support project through the executed HASLC/AAU master lease agreement.