wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] House of real repute named for Hayman

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Note #8760 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05303
June 8, 2005

House of real repute named for Hayman

Presbyterian minister shares California quarters with ex-prostitutes

by Toya Richards Hill

LOS ANGELES - Twenty-five years ago, when the Rev. Ann Hayman decided she was
going to help rehabilitate prostitutes, one of her first thoughts was: "How
do I tell my mother?"

	When she finally did make the call to her mom in Idaho to tell her
the news, Hayman says, "there was this long, horrible silence," followed by
her mother promptly calling her father to come to the phone.

	Hayman's parents had thought she would take a nice, safe job at a
Presbyterian church in Denver, CO. But things didn't quite work out that way.

	Instead Hayman, a confident woman with a no-nonsense attitude, was
hired to develop the Mary Magdalene Project, a long-term residential program
here to help prostitutes change their lives.

	Now, more than two decades later, this Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
minister who comes from a long line of Presbyterian leaders has become the
namesake of the Mary Magdalene Project's main residence, in Reseda, CA. On
June 4, the house, which now is home for four former prostitutes, was named
the Ann Hayman House.

	"I'm honored," said Hayman, the program director, who also lives in
the four-bedroom house. Then she added: "I'm not doing this for the glory."

	Instead, Hayman said she has dedicated her life to this recovery
program because of the women, whom she calls "courageous" and "bold."

	"I love living with them," she says.

	Each woman who enrolls in the Mary Magdalene Project agrees to stay
in the program for at least two years. To qualify, a woman must be at least
18 years old, sober for 90 days or more, and have completed a drug treatment
program.

	"We screen everyone," Hayman said, adding that women are usually
referred to the program by the courts or another referral agency. 

	About half of the women enter the program straight from jail, Hayman
said, and probably 70 percent have "substance-abuse issues." Roughly 85
percent also are survivors of incest, and at least half know of other family
members in prostitution, she said.

	Asked why these women take up prostitution, she says: "I think
they're trapped."

	Now these women have a chance to set themselves free, through the
Mary Magdalene Project, which evolved from the work of the Rev. Ross Greek,
the West Hollywood Presbyterian Church pastor who opened up his church
building as a haven for prostitutes. 

	A $30,000 grant from the Presbyterian Women Thank Offering officially
got the program off the ground. Today the project operates on a
$450,000-a-year budget - 30 percent from grants, 20 percent from fund-raising
campaigns, and 50 percent in donations from individuals, PC(USA)
congregations and other churches. 

	The program is "life-saving and life-pivotal" for women who "come
from abuse and trauma backgrounds," said Martin McCombs, executive director
of the Mary Magdalene Project, adding, "There's no other program like ours."

	Participants in the Mary Magdalene Project must sign a covenant in
which they promise to take part in a 12-step program and group therapy,
life-skills training, and programs of spiritual and personal development. 

	They learn decision-making, stress management and self-esteem
enhancement skills. Hayman says the program uses "developmental theory," and
she and her staff model life skills and parenting for the women.

	In the later stages of the program, the women move into their own
living spaces, or a project-owned apartment complex in Van Nuys, CA. 

	The idea is for the women to lead independent, self-sufficient and
prostitution-free lives, said Hayman, adding: "I do think people can change."

	Socorro entered the Mary Magdalene Project after she reached the
point where she was willing to "do anything to get me ahead of where I am
today."

	The petite, 57-year-old mother of three boys had quite a history by
the time she walked into the Reseda house. She was a cocaine addict who
turned to prostitution to feed her addiction. She landed in the Mary
Magdalene Project after completing a drug-treatment program.

	At the time, she says: "I was afraid. I was so confused."

	Now, she says, "I'm a different person than what I was."

	She now spends her days volunteering at a nearby addiction recovery
program, taking classes at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, CA, and in
therapy.

	The key, she said, is to take things "one day at a time - because if
I don't, I'm not going to make it." Socorro, whose goal is to become a
counselor, says of the program: "If you want it to work, it works."

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