MADISON, Wis. — On Thursday, organizations from around Dane County came together just outside of Mercies Coffee on Madison's east side for Operation Giving Hope.
Operation Giving Hope is a pop-up mobile service fair for long-term residents of the East Towne area motels.
“I think it is important to really be here, see folks in their full humanity, in their beauty and we want to welcome them, and we are just trying to deal with conditions that exist in our society,” said Jan Miyasaki, the director of Project Respect.
Twice a year, organizations throughout Wisconsin conduct a point-in-time count. It provides a snapshot of how many people are experiencing homelessness on any given night.
On a single night in January 2023, 624 people experiencing homelessness were identified in Madison & Dane Counties.
Jan Miyasaki, the director of Project Respect, a nonprofit organization that addresses sex trafficking, said those living in hotels don’t get counted and they often get overlooked.
“I would call it something of a service desert,” said Miyasaki. “There are people in the hotels here who are invisible and not counted in our homeless population.”
Shannon Siirila, human trafficking detective for the City of Madison Police Department, said many of these families have children and are often unable to afford proper school supplies or don’t even enroll their children into school at all.
“Their kids don’t have the same opportunities as other kids so we are trying to provide these pop up mobile fairs so they get the same opportunities as other children get,” said Siirila.
Miyasaki said pimps and human traffickers often prey on those living in poverty.
She also said there are many women living in Madison hotels that resort to sex work to make ends meet.
“There are conditions that make people vulnerable to traffickers and those conditions could be housing instability, food instability, needing to split what limited resources they have,” said Miyasaki.
Detective Siirila says Madison Police Department has a victim-centered approach and she said Operation Giving Hope is a good example of that.
“If they are not ready to speak to the police we partner and collaborate with community members like Project Respect and people that can give them the resources and the help they need to get stable,” said Detective Siirila.
In addition to bringing vital services to people, Operation Giving Hope provided lunch tote kits filled with essentials, children’s clothing and a wide range of resources to meet immediate basic needs.
The operation was organized by Project Respect and Madison Police Department, the co-chairs of the Dane County Coordinated Response to the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children.