Lauren had a job. She made good money. She was raising a daughter. Few people knew that behind the life she presented to the world, she was struggling with addiction, periods of homelessness and exploitation.

“Nobody knew my entire life,” said Lauren, who asked that only her first name be used. “If you met me, you probably would not assume that either. It is not something that is written on people.”

Lauren now helps other women rebuild their lives through Bloom, a Lehigh Valley nonprofit providing safe housing, workforce development, case management and long-term support for survivors of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation.

As organizations around the world marked World Day Against Trafficking in Persons July 30, Lauren’s experience challenged one of the biggest misconceptions about trafficking and exploitation: that it happens somewhere else or only to people who fit a certain stereotype.

In the Lehigh Valley, the issue is more local than one might think. The region sits within a few hours of New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C., placing it along major transportation corridors trafficking experts have long identified as vulnerable to criminal activity.

“We are very centrally located to a lot of port cities,” Carol Andersen, Bloom’s chief executive officer, said. “We have found that cities and places in these locations tend to have a higher volume of human trafficking.”

But Lauren’s story illustrates why geography alone does not explain the problem. In reality, trafficking often hides in plain sight, affecting people whose struggles remain invisible to friends, family members and coworkers. Lauren knows that firsthand.

For years, she was focused on survival. She was introduced to drugs at age 13, beginning a struggle that lasted years. During that time, she moved from place to place and often lived without stability.

“I was surviving for about 15 years,” she said.

Survival was not something Lauren thought about in abstract terms. Most days, her focus was simply getting through the next few hours. “How do I stay alive?” she recalled wondering. “How do I stay, you know, how do I block it out as much as possible?”

Her exploitation, she said, was fueled by substance use disorder, unstable housing and the constant need to meet immediate needs.

There was little room to think about the future.

“I was just surviving,” she said.

There were times she held steady jobs and earned good money. From the outside, she appeared successful, yet addiction continued to shape her life in ways most people never saw.

“I worked, and I was very successful in Philadelphia and made a lot of money,” she said, “yet I still had to find ways to survive.”

Looking back, Lauren said her experience did not resemble the stereotypes many people associate with trafficking or exploitation. There was no dramatic kidnapping. No chains. No sensational rescue.

“It doesn’t look, I think, the way people think it looks,” Andersen said.

Instead, circumstances gradually narrowed what felt possible.

Even now, Lauren struggles to pinpoint exactly when exploitation became part of her life. Asked when it began, she paused. “I couldn’t tell you honestly,” she said.

For many people, exploitation does not arrive as a single moment that is easy to identify. Instead, circumstances accumulate over time.

“There are individuals [who] are trafficked [who] don’t even realize they are a victim,” Andersen said.

Andersen defines human trafficking in simple terms: “It’s exploiting people for somebody else’s gain.”

While prosecutors must meet a specific legal standard to prove trafficking in court, Andersen said the underlying reality is far less complicated.

“It is the sale of human beings,” she said.

Andersen said those realities play out in communities across the country, including the Lehigh Valley, and physical geography is only part of the story. The Lehigh Valley’s growth has attracted residents and businesses, creating opportunity but also rising housing costs and increased pressure on people already struggling to make ends meet.

“It’s just a beautiful place to live,” Andersen said. “It’s got so many different types of industries that lend itself to a cross-section of employment opportunities.” At the same time, she said, “When you have growth like that and housing is squeezed, you have vulnerable people who then have to resort to other ways of surviving.”

People struggling to pay rent, maintain transportation or simply find a safe place to sleep can become vulnerable to exploitation.

“I’ve often said that poverty can be the trafficker,” Andersen said.

Those circumstances can make exploitation difficult to recognize, both for victims and for the people around them. That is one reason Bloom places such a heavy emphasis on community education and awareness. The goal, she said, is not only to help the public recognize warning signs but also to help victims understand there should be no shame in seeking help.

“We really do a lot of community education around this so that there is no stigma of a victim even coming forward,” Anderson said. “They don’t feel the shame of coming forward and saying, ‘This happened. This was done to me.’”

Awareness can help people recognize that exploitation is something done to them rather than something they should blame themselves for.

Nearly six years ago, Lauren entered treatment and eventually found her way to Bloom’s residential program.

For years, many of the systems she encountered seemed to make decisions for her, but Bloom was different. For the first time in a long time, she said, she found a place that offered support without taking away her sense of control.

After years of instability, that mattered.

“What set it apart from any other places that I had been before was that I still had autonomy,” Lauren said. “I still had a say in what I was doing and a choice in what I was doing.”

Founded to serve survivors of sex trafficking and sexual exploitation, Bloom helps women rebuild their lives through housing, workforce development, case management and long-term support. Many arrive carrying the same kinds of challenges Lauren once faced. Women entering the program often struggle with trauma, substance use disorders, untreated medical conditions, gaps in employment history and, in some cases, a lack of identification documents needed to secure housing, employment or transportation.

“Typically, they’re starting from zero in their adulthood,” Andersen said.

Bloom works with community partners to connect women with trauma counseling, mental health services, substance use treatment and medical care, while helping them build practical skills necessary for independent living.

In 2025, the organization provided 6,578 safe nights of housing, served 26 women and 10 children and facilitated more than 12,800 hours of survivor employment. Bloom currently has its largest waiting list ever, with 77 people who have completed an initial screening and are waiting for services.

For Lauren, the support she received at Bloom eventually inspired her to return in a new role. After leaving the residential program, Lauren found employment and continued rebuilding her life, but she wanted something more. She wanted to help women facing the same challenges she once faced. At the time, she was not asking for a job; she was talking about the future she hoped to build.

After spending years receiving help, she wanted to become the person providing it. During a conversation with Andersen, she shared that vision.

“I have all these amazing dreams, and I want to do what you’re doing,” she recalled telling her.

Not long afterward, Bloom hired her as a case manager. She now oversees workforce development programs, helping women prepare for jobs and independent living.

Through that work, Lauren sees firsthand many of the risks and vulnerabilities Bloom tries to address before exploitation occurs.

Prevention, Andersen said, begins with awareness. The internet has become one of the most common tools traffickers use to identify and groom potential victims, making it increasingly difficult for parents and caregivers to know who is influencing young people online. In one recent case, Andersen said, a 14-year-old girl was recruited online by a trafficker she never met face to face. For that reason, Andersen encourages adults to pay attention when a young person’s behavior changes suddenly.

Unusual secrecy, unexplained gifts, additional cellphones or relationships with people whose identities are difficult to verify can all be warning signs, she said.

“When something changes, and it is something significant, that’s when you realize something might be going on,” Andersen said.

The state has also expanded efforts to help others identify potential trafficking situations. Pennsylvania recently approved Senate Bill 45, which includes training requirements for hotel and motel employees on recognizing potential trafficking activity. Andersen said the measure could help because hospitality workers are often in a position to spot warning signs, including unusual traffic in and out of a room. Still, she cautioned that trafficking is often hidden from public view. While she applauded the requirement, Andersen noted traffickers are skilled at concealing criminal activity and, in some cases, others may profit from it as well.

“The sad thing is sometimes they’re getting part of the funds,” she said.

Even so, she said, raising awareness can save lives. Most importantly, Andersen said, community members should remember there are vulnerable people everywhere. Lauren was once one of them. Today, she has a home, a car, a partner, her daughter in her life, a horse and a dog. Taken individually, those things may seem ordinary, but to Lauren, they represent stability, relationships and a future she once struggled to imagine. There was a time when finding a safe place to sleep took precedence over planning for tomorrow. Today, she helps other women do exactly that.

“I look back on that chapter of my life and it’s not something that I dwell in a lot,” she said, “but I’m able to pull from those experiences and really put it into my work.”

What she experienced is no longer the defining part of her story. Instead, it has become something she draws on to help other women find a way forward.

Andersen said Lauren’s experience offers something many women entering the program desperately need to see.

“Those who have this experience are oftentimes the best ones to not only inform programs like Bloom but to show others who are looking for hope or looking for a way out that it is possible,” Andersen said.

Lauren hopes people take away the same lesson. Recovery is possible, and so is rebuilding a life. She now spends her days helping other women believe that, too.