How a Charlotte nonprofit, NC officials will use $9.6M grant to fight human trafficking
The North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, a Charlotte nonprofit and a prosecutors’ group are getting millions to fight human trafficking, they said in a news release.
The $9.6 million grant from the Howard G. Buffett Foundation will fund six full-time employees at the SBI who will do intelligence analysis and investigate financial crimes. It will also pay for a prosecutor at the North Carolina Conference of District Attorneys and two victim service coordinators.
More than $4 million from the grant will go to Safe Alliance. It will help the local nonprofit pay for several positions to support anti-trafficking organizations and survivors, according to the release.
North Carolina and Charlotte are hot spots for human trafficking, two people whose work will benefit from the funding said.
“The plan is to hire, and fund dedicated resources and specialists who can work collaboratively to follow leads, analyze data, identify trafficking networks and support victims throughout the entire process,” SBI Special Agent in Charge Kellie Hodges said in the news release.
Human trafficking in Charlotte
North Carolina consistently ranks in the top 10 to 12 states for human trafficking, and Charlotte is a hub for it in North Carolina, said Emily Barnhardt, a clinician with Safe Alliance.
Barnhardt has been helping human trafficking victims in the area for eight years. Besides her work with Safe Alliance, she’s a sexual assault response team coordinator for Mecklenburg County.
The National Human Trafficking Hotline received 922 contacts from North Carolina in 2021. And 318 of those came directly from victims or survivors.
Some reasons for the area’s high numbers: Charlotte’s highways and interstates, a thriving agriculture industry nearby that pulls in labor trafficking and tourism in a fast-growing metropolitan area, Barnhardt said.
“Victims of human trafficking can be any age, race, gender, nationality, socioeconomic status — the whole spectrum,” she said.
There are some groups at a higher risk of being trafficked and exploited, though, including LGBTQ+ people, people of color or migrant laborers, she added.
“Most people automatically think of the movie Taken — the abductions — and while that certainly can happen, it is quite rare in the US compared to the other tactics most commonly used by traffickers here,” she said. “Traffickers really look for people who are susceptible for a variety of reasons.”
And they take advantage of vulnerabilities, she said.
Funding will help new center
A previously announced center for human trafficking survivors, as well as those who’ve survived other especially traumatizing crimes, is scheduled to open in Charlotte in late 2025.
That new center, the Umbrella Center, will get a community liaison, licensed clinicians, hotline advocates and a sexual trauma resource center advocate through the grant. Safe Alliance is the administrative lead for the Umbrella Center.
“It will greatly impact Mecklenburg County, and it supports the great work that’s already being done in this community,” Laura Lawrence, the president and CEO of Safe Alliance, told The Charlotte Observer. “It’s also going to be much more of a collaboration across the whole state of North Carolina.”
With its community ties, the nonprofit is uniquely positioned to help on the issue, she said.
The foundation awarding the money was created by its namesake, Howard G. Buffett, a son of billionaire investor Warren Buffett. The foundation says its mission is to “catalyze transformational change to improve the standard of living and quality of life, particularly for the world’s most impoverished and marginalized populations.” Along with its spending to fight human trafficking, it lists food security, conflict mitigation and public safety as priorities.
This story was originally published January 19, 2024 at 11:08 AM with the headline "How a Charlotte nonprofit, NC officials will use $9.6M grant to fight human trafficking."