Casa of Hope is a nonprofit in Santa Maria that s dedicated to providing safe housing for survivors of sex trafficking, and Executive Director
Ellen Torres understands the importance of this resource from personal experience. She survived sex trafficking in Santa Maria when she was a teenager. click to enlarge Photo Courtesy Of Ellen Torres
LIVED EXPERIENCE Casa of Hope Executive Director Ellen Torres knows what it s like to survive human trafficking. Now, she s using her experience to help others. When I was 16, my family moved here from Pennsylvania, Torres said. I had only been here about a month and a half, and I had traffickers that were following me to and from school every day.
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Lindsey Haring signed her kids up for the SLO Youth Baseball league this February, all she could think about was how desperately they needed to get outside and see their friends. After nearly a year of being holed up at home together amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Haring s children second and fourth graders at
C. L. Smith Elementary School returned to their classrooms this month for limited in-person instruction. Haring said she could see the difference in her second grader almost immediately. Virtual learning isn t easy for younger kids, she said, and his whole attitude brightened after just a few days of in-person class.