It’s another clash between idealism and reality.
This one pits the desire to combat human trafficking against the reality of a state facing a potential $8 billion budget hole in the next budget cycle.
Kreidenweis, originally from Cincinnati, is no up-in-the-clouds dreamer.
He’s president of the New Abolitionist Movement at UD. Members want to provide “students with a conduit to transform their moral outrage into positive action,” said Kreidenweis.
His determination to get into the trenches landed him a job as an unpaid intern for Sen. Teresa Fedor, D-Toledo.
Fedor’s done more than anyone at the Statehouse to convince state officials that traffickers who force people — often young women — into the sex trade and involuntary servitude operate in Ohio just as they do in less developed corners of the globe.
It’s sometimes harder to accept reality when it’s closer to home, said Kreidenweis.
“Every shadow seems darker,” he said. “People get a little more paranoid.”
Last week, Attorney General Richard Cordray appointed Kreidenweis to the Ohio Trafficking in Persons Study Commission. At his first meeting, Kreidenweis heard a report that provided a blueprint for what Ohio needs to do to help trafficking victims turn their lives around. The study found that an estimated 1,861 foreign-born persons and domestic young people are trafficked in a year.
One recommendation called for spending $4 million to hire 52 specially trained case managers to work with victims, with potential funding from the federal government or maybe foundations.
A second called for badly needed trafficking-specific residential programs in each of the state’s five geographic areas. It didn’t have a price tag.
After the meeting, Cordray, the commission chairman, said the “cold reality” might be that money is short but that the report’s goal was to first identify services that are needed, something that hasn’t been done before.
“I hope that doesn’t crush people’s idealism,” said Cordray. “I hope that tempers their idealism.”
Cordray said he has been impressed with UD’s efforts to raise awareness of the issue, particularly the Dayton Human Trafficking Accords conference held last November. The commission needs young members like Kreidenweis who are the same ages as many victims, said Cordray.
Kreidenweis has been accepted at UD for graduate work in public administration but hasn’t enrolled yet. He’ll be kept busy this summer by Fedor. When the legislature returns in the fall, probably after the Nov. 2 election, her top priority is winning passage of Senate Bill 235, which makes trafficking a separate felony criminal offense and increases penalties for compelling prostitution and kidnapping and abduction when traffickers are involved. Forty-four other states already have similar enforcement tools, she said.
Kreidenweis will be working on the strategy to get it approved, Fedor added.
He isn’t giving up on solutions with a price tag. “It’s time to go out and find that money, wherever it may come from,” he said.
Contact this reporter at (614) 224-1608 or whershey@Dayton DailyNews.com.
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