She formed DIGNITY -- Developing Individual Growth and New Independence Through Yourself -- in Durango Jail in 1989 as a support group for women wanting to leave the sex industry.
Her DIGNITY House residency program opened its doors in a central-Phoenix neighborhood in April 1998 under the auspices of Catholic Social Services. A grant from the city of Phoenix got the facility off the ground.
Paolo Vescia
Kathleen Mitchell knows Katherine from DIGNITY class in jail. Released only a few weeks ago, Katherine is headed back to jail.
Angela Jimenez
The kitchen at DIGNITY House is filled with thoughtful reminders and inspirational words.
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For the most part, government leaves it to police to deal with prostitution. When vice targets Van Buren Street, officers arrest 35 to 50 prostitutes nightly. In 1999, nearly 1,600 were arrested. Jail is often the only long-term residency program available for women who want to leave street life. There are few places for indigents, and when Harbor Lights residency program closes in June, there will be 100 fewer beds.
Recovering prostitutes also face multiple addictions and societal prejudices. Those who do get out hold a tenuous grip on the straight world and are still drawn to a lifestyle many say is addictive.
DIGNITY House is the only program in the city that is geared toward prostitution. The program takes up to five women at a time for up to one year. The recruits mostly come from jail or from outreach on the streets.
Life there, by design, is highly structured. Men are not allowed on the premises. The women can't have their children with them. They must share chores, hold down a job and contribute 30 percent of their income to the house. Phone calls are restricted. There is a 10 p.m. curfew. They must attend nightly Prostitutes Anonymous meetings.
PA is a national 12-step recovery program like Alcoholics Anonymous, with one exception: the members of PA believe the sex industry is their drug. They believe that prostitution in and of itself is an addiction.
"Prostitution is a behavior addiction," explains Richard, a former male prostitute and the only man who's a member of the local PA chapter. "You are more addicted to the lifestyle, power -- validating yourself with feeling loved, in control, feeling wanted. It's also the running-gunning part -- the excitement of the score and the chase. It's all the same elements of drug addiction.
"I've been a sex addict ever since I was a child. It made prostitution much easier. I knew I was a sex addict long before I knew I was a drug addict. People who are constantly sexually oriented -- they're addicts, and I have been an addict all of my life. Those things are very hard to recover from. That's why PA is my most favorite meeting."
Paula Wainright, a recovering prostitute and resident supervisor of DIGNITY House, describes an addiction as insane behavior that ignores consequences. Wainright recently had a mastectomy. She explains that when her body was a commodity, the surgery would not have been possible.
"My body is not who I am," she says. "I would not have said that a few years ago. I'd have let it [cancer] kill me before I'd have let them take my breast."
Wainright explains that PA offers a safe place for prostitutes to discuss their pasts. All those who attend PA, including its one male member, have worked the streets and share similar experiences.
"What is so great about PA is that when you're in AA meetings or a treatment center, you can't talk about that stuff when there's men there. It causes all kinds of problems.
"Most recovery programs are co-ed, and if you fraternize with a guy you are put on restriction," says Lori, a 35-year-old resident of DIGNITY. "Here, we're on restriction all the time. Men can't even walk through that door."
DIGNITY House, a white ranch-style home, sits in a quiet, residential neighborhood in central Phoenix. After a dinner of cabbage stew, residents of DIGNITY House sit on the back porch, chatting and filling up the ashtrays; cigarettes are one vice they're still allowed.
All the women have war stories to tell -- stabbings, beatings, rapes -- and all of them stayed on the streets despite the consequences. The details of their stories differ, but they share common threads. Nearly all of them experienced childhood sexual abuse, and all these women turned to prostitution for drugs, men or both. For most, DIGNITY House is not their first attempt to get off drugs and out of prostitution, and it may not be their last.
Of the 21 women who were lucky enough to get into DIGNITY House, 13 are considered success stories -- but that doesn't mean they didn't relapse at least once. Eight of DIGNITY House's graduates are back on the streets, Mitchell says.
Cathy, the newest resident, can't sit still. She shifts her weight, throws her legs over the side of a wicker armchair and picks herself up to sit cross-legged. Her voice wavers and cracks, her movements are sporadic, her hair, flat and lifeless, is plastered to her face. She has been here nearly two months and still marvels about having a place to sleep.
"I know where I'm gonna wake up," Cathy says. "And instead of waking up sick from dope, I'm gonna have a cup of coffee, look at the news, put on clean clothes, take a shower. Feel like a real person . . ."
