More than two decades ago, a chance encounter on a park bench in Kentucky broke Ked Frank’s heart and began a mission that has since helped hundreds of women escape sex trafficking and find stable housing, support and a path toward a different life.
Ked and his wife Michelle had been serving in full-time ministry when they met two sisters who had come to their church desperate for help. One was eight months pregnant. The church could offer them a motel room and some meals, but not much more. That conversation, Ked said, really began something.
The following night, Michelle went with a local ministry into a strip club, carrying lasagna to distribute to the women who worked there. She described an overwhelming moment when she seemed to see, written on the faces of the women around her, words like broken, lonely, help. The memory still brings her to tears.
That experience launched a 20-year anti-trafficking mission that took them from a rundown farmhouse outside Lexington to a nationwide organization.
Building a shelter from the ground up
The Franks opened their first home on a friend’s farm outside Lexington, Kentucky. Ked described a moment of hesitation before asking his friend whether the land might be used to shelter women who needed to escape and recover. His friend responded that he had recently received what he took to be a message telling him the land was not truly his but would be used for ministry.
That farmhouse became the foundation of Refuge for Women, a national ministry that provided emergency housing and long-term care. It was the first of what would become 12 homes.
Today, Ked and Michelle run Safe Places for Women, headquartered in Littleton, Colorado. The faith-based transitional living program provides long-term housing, case management and addiction recovery for trafficking survivors. Ked serves as president and founder of the trafficking-focused organization, and Michelle as co-founder.
Their focus has been deliberately narrow. While many anti-trafficking organizations offer broad services, the Franks chose to concentrate on housing, which they describe as having been at the heart of their work from the beginning. Ked speaks about the particular impact of walking alongside women as they begin writing a new chapter, often for the first time in a long time.
The scope of the problem
Approximately 6.3 million people, the majority of them women and girls, are involved in sex trafficking around the world at any given time. The magnitude of the need has shaped how the Franks think about their work and why they have emphasized housing as a critical gap.
Safe Places for Women works in conjunction with Rescue America, a 24-hour hotline connecting trafficking victims with organizations that can provide immediate support. Michelle describes that relationship as essential, allowing women who reach out to be connected to safe places quickly.
A generational story
One photograph has come to represent the kind of impact the Franks have dedicated their lives to creating. It was taken at their first home and shows a resident named Devon holding her three-year-old daughter, Gwenna, next to a welcome home sign.
The Franks had planned to share Devon’s story at a recent gala. Just before the event, Devon reached out to say she had someone who wanted to speak with them. That person was Gwenna, now sixteen, who told them about her passion for music, her role leading worship, and the college courses she is taking.
Devon, now married, works with trafficking survivors herself.
Ked described Devon’s story as one of hundreds he could tell. He said that helping her had a generational impact, and that Gwenna is now on a completely different path than she would have been without that intervention.
What drives them
Michelle described the experience of looking back across two decades of this work as an honor. She said the scale of human trafficking can feel overwhelming, but that each person’s contribution can ripple outward in ways they may not anticipate.
She described the essential posture as finding your something and extending it, giving hope to someone who needs it.
The Franks have been married for 26 years and have two daughters and a son.
