NJNP Collective Housing

Violence against sex workers often go unreported and unaddressed. Homelessness greatly exacerbates the violence an individual can experience as well as the dependency on the sex trade itself. We know this well at NJNP Collective Housing which initially, a single intentional community home for Trans current and former sex workers as part of No Justice No Pride‘s (NJNP) response to FOSTA/SESTA; has grown into a network of safe homes thru-out The District of Columbia for Black, Brown, Indigenous Trans and Intersex community members in search of safe housing.

What are some of the realities?

In DC — according to the DC Trans Needs Assessment Survey, a survey released in 2015 that had over 500 trans participants in the DC Area — over 35% of the respondents reported of having engaged in sex work, with a majority those respondents being of color and identifying as trans woman or trans feminine. In the same survey 74% of respondents had been verbally assaulted, 42% physically assaulted, and 35% sexually assaulted, so it should be no surprise that when the issue of housing came up in the survey, 20% of those taking the survey reporting that they are currently experiencing homelessness, Those currently experiencing homelessness are significantly more likely to be HIV positive and half of those responded as homeless reported to rely “ informal and grey economic work for income (such as sex work).

How has NJNP responded?

Since April 2018, with our communities facing increasing levels of violence because of FOSTA/SESTA, NJNP doubled-down on providing Rapid Response Support to our Trans familia and expanded our Trans Justice Program to include mutual aid & support and a pilot Organizing Training Project(OTP) to develop the organizing and leadership skills of Trans folks of color most directly and disproportionately impacted by violences resulting from the criminalization of sex work.