The Dream Center Foundation’s Night of Dreams will bring together several hundred professionals and community leaders at the Queen of Angels Hospital to benefit The Dream Center. This year’s theme is “Shining Your Light” and will benefit the homeless through various outreach programs.
The Night of Dreams is specifically focusing on Human Trafficking. We are focusing on women in the United States who have been forced into slavery or sexual acts. We are trying to bring the darkness of this issue into the light. Not many people in the United States know that there is even such a thing that is taking place in this country… but it is. Most people think that it only happens in third world countries but the fact is that it is taking place right here under their own noses.
All of the money that will be donated at this event is going to the building of our human trafficking floor. Money will be going to the girls who we are bringing in and who we are giving a safe place to live. People will also be able to sponsor a child by purchasing a teddy bear… there will be a story attached to the bear.
When the people enter the event, there will be a human trafficking gallery. They guests will walk through the gallery as if it was an apartment, alley, or street where the girls were trafficked. It will give the story of many different girls and there will be a chapel at the end of the gallery where the guests can pray for some of the girls.
Located in the heart of poverty, hopelessness, and violence, The Dream Center is surrounded by gang members who actively recruit young children into lives of violence and drugs. Poverty and addictions have sent many to live on the streets.
Each night in Los Angeles, over 11,000 people sleep on the sidewalks. Today in L.A., one of six families is living below the poverty line. The average family income for the poor has declined 24% since 1967.
These individuals are in desperate need of housing, food, and clothing. Community resources are stretched to the breaking point, and most shelters have six-month waiting lists.
The children are the most negatively affected. Nationally, 50% of Caucasian children and 80% of African-American children live in single-parent homes for at least part of their childhood. These children are five times more likely to live below the poverty line than children who live with both parents.
In L.A., the rate of poverty among children is almost 50% higher than the poverty rate among the city’s population as a whole. Most of these children will experience lives of gangs, drugs, crime and illicit sex.
Cities around the country and across the world mirror the situation in L.A. The world will soon have more than 300 cities with populations over one million. Cities will continue to see an increase in crime, drugs and poverty. The problems of the inner city will increasingly affect all Americans.