Bay Windows - Local News, July 15, 1999
Scott A. Giordano, Bay Windows staff

And while social care workers have seen the number of street hustlers decreasing in recent years due to a rise in professional escort services and sexual solicitations via the Internet, BostonÆs Bay Village neighborhood and Arlington Street area continue to be places at which some of the most vulnerable gay men, and those considered ôgay for pay,ö go to solicit sex to support their substance-abuse patterns and sometimes their very lives. And while the street hustler community is increasingly becoming one of the most invisible and smaller subsets of the gay community, it is one still very much in need of social services. That is where BostonÆs JRI Health fits into the picture.

JRI Health was established in 1991 by BostonÆs Justice Research Institute (JRI) to provide health care and social services to under-served populations that include sex workers. Among the services provided by JRI Health are counseling and health care to the uninsured, assistance with finding employment and housing options for the homeless, and legal consultations for those who are having troubles with the law. In addition, outreach workers walk the streets at night to hand out condoms and information for crisis prevention.

ôWe started JRI Health as the JRI office of AIDS services about 10 years ago as part of Justice Research Institute. One of the programs we started with was coupling up with folks from ChildrenÆs Hospital who were doing some street outreach to male sex workers, and we sort of worked with them to form the Boston Street Youth Outreach Program, which provided condoms and information and crisis intervention services for a lot of hustlers who were around the block when the Greyhound Bus Station was there. At that point, the block, around St. James Street, was a lot more populated and there were a lot more kids out there,ö recalls Michael Cronin, the executive director of JRI Health. ôWe developed a presence fairly quickly. Over time, the kids on the block got to know the folks with the purple backpacks that all our outreach workers had. ... A lot of them represented a real lifeline [to the hustlers.]ö

Cronin said the street trade was a lot more prominent 10 years ago when JRI first began offering its services. And as HIV/AIDS continued to spread, the dangers faced by those on the street became much more severe, prompting the organization to begin drop-in services at the the Arlington Street Church and later establishing the Sidney Borum Health Center to serve under-served populations and the uninsured.

ô[The drop-in site] was the place where we began to listen to what [the sex workers] really needed. One of the things we heard right away is that they needed health care. We tried many options ... even with providers or physicians who were very sympathetic. The problem was that the systems around them didnÆt really work. ... When you live under a bridge and have no food, a week from Thursday at 3 oÆclock doesnÆt mean a whole lot. So appointments didnÆt work. That was the genesis of us starting the Sidney Borum Health Center, where people can come in without appointments.ö

Located at 130 Boylston St. in Boston, the Health Center has walk-in hours from 3-7 p.m. Monday through Thursday and from 1-5 p.m. on Friday and all other times by appointment. It also offers 24-hour emergency on-call medical and mental health call backs for its clients.

Identifying a community

Perhaps one of the greatest challenges faced by JRI Health, Cronin said, is to first identify an underground, and at times invisible, community. As outreach workers began to do so and continued listening to the stories of street-sex workers, their stories often shared similar themes.

ôAbout 60 percent [of the youth we serve] are homeless and run-a-way kids who self identify as being gay. They leave their homes and communities where they are being oppressed, abused or made fun of. They run away from that and run to an urban center where they hope to find a wonderful gay culture that will support them and embrace them,ö Cronin said. ôThey all have the dream of finding a wonderful job, wonderful lover and a nice apartment. But because they often leave home earlier than their straight counterparts who were not abused as much and not in an oppressive situation, they are often not as prepared to make it on their own.ö

Homelessness is often a real issue for those who come to JRI Health, Cronin said, who added that many of the street workers come from throughout New England to Boston because it is known as the regionÆs ômagnetö for the gay community.

ôThese kids may spend time on a couch with a friend but they can only do that for so long before people get irritated. In a lot of instances, it becomes a pretty quick de-escalation into choosing between being homeless and life on the street, or getting a sugar daddy,ö Cronin said. ôIn some cases, having a sugar daddy is the same thing as selling sex for food and for money. A lot of kids have stable sugar daddies that they hook up with on a regular basis. ... Sometimes that is not the worst thing in the world; sometimes it can be very destructive and difficult.ö

Another pressing problem faced by those on the street is that they often become addicted to substances, and those addictions end up feeding their need for continued sex work. One of the most commonly used substances on the block is crack, Cronin said, because ôItÆs highly addictive, easily available and cheap.ö Sniffable heroine also is making a resurgence, he said.

ôIt went without saying that if a kid was on the street he would also be using drugs and getting into this stuff, sometimes IÆm sure just to deal with the fact that he is on the street turning tricks and life becomes so difficult and at times unbearable that drugs are an escape from those feelings,ö Cronin said. ôOnce you get into the whole cycle and find yourself doing anything for money, we also see the phenomenon of people willing to take a little more money for unsafe sex. And kids who are hooked on crack or speed will rise to the occasion, say they need the money and [then engage in unsafe sex.]ö

Most of the sex workers on the street today are in their 20s, Cronin said, but itÆs hard for even JRI to get an accurate profile of the street community because people on the street are so transient.

Helping gay youth

As the patterns became clear, JRI realized there was a need to establish a support network for gay youth, a place other than the streets where they could go for much-needed support ù thus came Boston GLASS (Gay and Lesbian Adolescent Social Services.)

ôAn awful lot of kids were kicked out of their homes because they are gay. That is one of the recurring themes that led to Boston GLASS, when we heard time and time again how these kids got onto the streets and what was their sequence of events. In 60-70 percent of the cases, it started with æI got thrown out of my home because I am gay,Æ or æThings were so bad, I was being abused and I ran away from my house because I really couldnÆt tolerate being gay in that situation.Æ ... At Boston GLASS, our services range from helping kids develop job-readiness skills and we actually employ some of them at GLASS to get them used to meeting deadlines and all that stuff,ö Cronin said.

In addition, JRI is just now beginning a mentoring program in collaboratian with the Greater Boston Business Council (GBBC) ù a group for gay and lesbian business professionals.

ôWe are now staring something with about 50 people from the Greater Boston Business Council, where they have agreed to do some mentorships with some kids. ... They have agreed to go through our volunteer training program and do all the stuff we do and to actually help kids in a mentoring-like relationship,ö Cronin said. ôItÆs a new program, and weÆre still not sure how it will all actually develop. We hope it will create some employment pathways for some young kids.

ôWe are finally over the myth and fear of older gay men to engage in a mentoring relationship with a younger gay man because they feared being accused of recruiting or sugar-daddying,ö Cronin said. ôI think we are finally at the point where we can say we need to take care of our young, these kids who often have been rejected by their parents and donÆt have the adult support they need. We need to create that, and the GBBC mentoring program is the first step.ö

To provide further support to its clients, JRI also offers counseling and mental-health services.

ôOne of the things that happens when people are on the streets is that their development stops; they stay adolescent. When you deal with a life on a moment-to-moment crisis mode, itÆs hard to really fully develop and explore your world. ItÆs hard to do the things that adolescence is really about when you spend all your psychological energy surviving and living moment to moment, so these services are vital to helping these kids identify themselves and their directions in life,ö Cronin said.

Another pattern that became clear to the social care providers is that many of the street-sex workers were in trouble with the law and were afraid to seek social services for that reason. That was the catalyst for JRIÆs Health Law Institute.

ôWe have a lot of folks who have defaulted on court appearances. ... We find outstanding warrants are a deterrent for kids coming to us for services because they are afraid that if they surface to social services that somebody will find them and they will get arrested. We have a Health Law Project with attorneys who help these young folks deal with all their default warrants and the court stuff,ö Cronin said.

A new phenomenon

With more sex-workers soliciting their services on the Internet and through professional escort services and personal pagers, Cronin said it has become increasingly difficult to identify these people as less of them are working the streets.

ôRecently, the sex trade has decreased on the street. There are fewer kids, although the population on the street is more diverse, and there are more transgender folks scattered along Bay Village,ö Cronin said. ôOne of the interesting phenomena that nobody really talks about is that many young people are engaging in part-time commercial sex through agencies. These are kids who are not really homeless. There are kids who might be housed and might be sort of almost at the situation where they could do OK but they find that by doing this, they find they can make a lot more money than they can on the street. ... Our understanding is that there are hundreds and hundreds of kids involved in that work.ö

That new phenomenon also has created new challenges and new dangers, as the commercial sex-workers face equal risks as the street-sex workers, but the commercial workers are even more difficult to identify.

ôWe find that most of the kids that we know of who are involved in agency or individual beeper work are not into things like crack and the drugs on the street but are into the designer drugs like power cocaine and XTC, crystal and Special K, like what the party boys do in the clubs. They all have their little beepers and they are making more money and donÆt have to [hustle] all the time and they arenÆt as likely to be homeless or on the street. But in some ways, they are at even greater danger than the kids on the street because at least the kids on the street watch out for each other. There is a sort of family mentality where the older kids will help the younger kids and we also have our outreach workers out there. Working for an agency, the agencies really discourage their sex workers from talking with each other. ItÆs a very isolating experience, and there is no sense of people watching out for each other,ö Cronin said.

ôMy guess, from speaking with some of the kids involved with this, is that they are at even greater risk for HIV infection and other stuff because their johns are still saying they will give more money for unsafe sex and the kids donÆt have a peer group to support them and say no to that stuff and they donÆt have anybody they can really talk to about this because they are ashamed about it and keep it hidden,ö he added. ô

And although the street trade may have diminished, Cronin said it still exists and often involves johns who are closeted gay men.

ôThe street scene is more anonymous than calling a number and using your credit card. What we find is that many of the people who pick up these kids on the street are married, suburban husbands or closeted people who donÆt want to risk losing their anonymity. When they pick people up on the street and just pay them cash, thatÆs it and itÆs all very anonymous,ö he said. ôThe trade seems to be much lighter now, and more people are doing work through agencies.ö

Alternatives to just surviving

ronin said the most successful approach to JRIÆs outreach efforts has been to offer support and referral information without casting any judgment on the sex-workers.

ôOur approach here has not been to get the kids off the street, necessarily, but to make them aware of what their options are. Although, frankly, itÆs hard to imagine any one of us working here who doesnÆt have that personal goal,ö he said. ôBut once you start to preach, you drive them away and thatÆs the worst thing you can do. ... You need to make sure people know what their options are. A lot of kids on the street and involved throughout other sex work really believe that is the only thing they can do. It really becomes survival sex, and they think itÆs their only way to survive.

ôWe are out there to convince them and show them what the other options are; they can have options for health care, employment and job training,ö he added. ôWe try to engage the kids and form relationships with as many of them as we can and let them know that we are here and we have free services here that are available for them, and they donÆt have to use their own name if they donÆt want to.ö

The best advice Cronin has to offer todayÆs street-sex workers is to explore all the options available to them before they become too accustomed to life on the street, and to always use protection when engaging in sexual activity.

ôKids on the street either get out right away or it becomes sort of a sentence because they get addicted to it and to the drugs. ... There is obviously a core group of kids who get involved with it and canÆt get out of it,ö he said. ôItÆs hard to go from making hundreds of dollars a night to going someplace where you make $6 an hour and there are not a whole lot of jobs for the kids who are out there without much skills. These kids need to know we are here not to judge them but to offer them resources. We will work with them to find out what the best options are for them.ö

(For more information on JRI Health, visit its web site at http://www.jrihealth.org or call 617-457-8134.)
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