A safe house that can never run out of money
Most survivor housing lives or dies by grants and donations. IMI safe houses are built on the City of Refuge model instead: businesses on the outside fund the refuge on the inside — permanently.
The design
Three things every house has
Self-sustaining businesses
Each house is funded by its own income engine — in Missouri, a coffee shop, storage units, and a retail store carry a six-bedroom home. No grant cycle can close these doors.
A local church family
Every safe house is partnered with a local church, so residents step out of isolation into a real community — meals, mentors, and people who know their names.
Support staff and counselors
Healing from trafficking is long, professional work. Each house is staffed with support workers and counselors who walk with survivors through it.
Proof it works
Six bedrooms in Missouri
The Missouri safe house shows the whole model in one address we will never publish. It is a six-bedroom home, and the mortgage, utilities, staff, and groceries are paid by three businesses IMI operates alongside it: a coffee shop, storage units, and a retail store.
When the businesses do well, the house does well. When giving is thin, the house still stands — because a survivor’s bed should never depend on a fundraising letter. It is the same lesson IMI learned in 2008 with the orphanage in Honduras, applied to the American crisis: build the income first, and the mercy never stops.
This is also why IMI keeps building. Government officials themselves have identified housing shortages for survivors; the program began in 2020 after three rescued teenagers died by suicide while waiting for government housing. Each new business IMI opens is another set of doors that can open the day they are needed.
Four states and counting
Since 2020, IMI has opened safe houses in four states. For every resident’s protection, the state is the only location detail we share.
- Hawaii
- Iowa
- Minnesota
- Missouri
Your part
Three ways to open the next door
Volunteer
Skills, time, fundraising, awareness — the houses and the businesses that fund them both run on willing hands.
Ways to help →
Give
On the giving portal, choose the “Fight Human Trafficking in the USA” fund. Gifts build homes and the businesses that sustain them.
Give to the fund →
Partner your church
Every house needs a church family around it. If your congregation wants to surround survivors with community, start the conversation.
Contact IMI →
Build a home that cannot close
Every gift to the Fight Human Trafficking in the USA fund becomes beds, counselors, and businesses that keep them funded.