WACO, Texas — On Tuesday night, the Waco City council approved zoning permits for the Reagan House, a safe home for teenage victims of sex trafficking and exploitation.
The safe house had the support of County Sheriff Parnell McNamara and Detective Joseph Scaramucci. They agree that the children in Central Texas need a safe place after being the victim of a heinous crime.
"Some of these things that we have seen with these women, the way they've been mistreated, physically and emotionally, if I get to thinking about it, it's hard for me to sleep at night," McNamara said as he addressed the council. "Please consider the Reagan house is a transitional shelter."
Since 2007, 79,000 youth in Texas were victims of sex trafficking. In total, 313,000 victims when you include adults. The problem is clear. Unbound Waco Executive Director Kristi Hayes says they have unwavering community support.
"I feel like this house, the Reagan house is really the community's house," Hayes said. "We have Waco Family Medicine that is helping us through medical care. We have the Methodist Children's Home that's coming along and helping us with education. We have the Waco Advocacy Center who says we want to provide services too."
And Hayes says she sees a community in Waco that is willing to all lend a helping hand in the process.
"The community can help in so many different levels of volunteers resources, energy, so many people have a heart for this type of work. And just being informed, we have a lot of trainings and we want to make people aware of what's going on. Sometimes people don't even know that this is going on in our own community. And when they do they have that same kind of gut reaction like these these kids will have a safe space this will not happen on our watch."