By Huda Ahmed/OAKLAND

Every day, Dee Dee Perry, a 46-year-old ex-prostitute, leaves her apartment on International Boulevard in Oakland and walks along the strip in search of young prostitutes. Her mission? To help them get off the streets and restore their innocence.

Perry spends much of her time trying to convince prostitutes as young as 14 and 15 years old that Christ loves them.

“You know, Christ is protecting you,” she tells the young women. Or sometimes she’ll just ask if they’re okay, or if they need any condoms.

International Boulevard in East Oakland is known for its sex workers and pimps, who show up at all times of the day. It’s a busy area, with Latino and Asian retail shops, apartments’ buildings, small hotels, restaurants, car washes and gas stations. Sex workers stand at bus stops or walk along the street or hang out with each other, and some drivers honk at them for deals.

Dee Dee Perry walks International Blvd. each day to help sex workers get off the street.

Perry is a tall, big and nice-looking African American woman who grew up in East Oakland with her family and four siblings. She finished high school and went for graphic arts classes at Laney College in Oakland, but she did not graduate. Later, she went to Everest Institute to get a medical-assistance license.

At age 14, Perry and a 16-year-old friend started calling random phone numbers in the Yellow Pages for fun. “It was a fluke, and we were teenagers who would do whatever came to our minds; we did not think much of it,” she said. “We did not have a goal; we were just making prank calls.” But the calls turned into something else when some of the men they called at random started talking to them about sex. The girls saw an opportunity, and they seized it.

They turned their prank calls into a business. Men would ask about sex, and the girls would ask them what kind of women they wanted. Then they recruited other girls and set up meetings at motels with clients. The entourage would check into a room, settle on the details, and Perry and her friend would wait in the lobby or in the parking lot until the transaction was complete. Then they’d drive the girl back home.

Their escort business made $1,000 to 1,500 a week. Perry would get $500 to $600. Although this lasted for two years, Perry managed to keep it secret from her family. As long as she was earning decent grades in school, they assumed all was good and well with their little Dee Dee. “It was exciting, fun, and good money,” she said. It was dangerous, but “we were bold girls and ready to take risk.”

Dee Dee eventually went to work at a phone company, but that was just a cover-up for the risky life she was leading as a female pimp, party girl and cocaine user. She would often blow her entire paycheck on drugs. Her life spiraled downward for nearly 12 years. She lived in an apartment in East Oakland, and she always had a job. But she sold sex at night.

“I lived a double life,” Perry said. “My family did not know what I was doing. I used to show up at work normally, but I disappeared during weekends.”

When everything started falling apart, she lost her job and began pimping herself out to the men she once sent other girls to. She eventually found herself living on the streets of East Oakland, homeless in her own hometown.

Family and friends tried to help but they did not know how. Perry was angry and she was hiding from dealing with her issues through sex and drugs.

One day while she was selling drugs and prostituting at the corner between 103rd and 104th on International Boulevard, a tall African-American man in his late 30s approached her to purchase drugs. He bought $20 worth, and they started talking. She said she was frustrated and was looking for a way out, and he began to tell her about the love of God and the Outreach Victory Church’s program that helped people get off drugs. She didn’t

believe any such place existed. She’d only heard about people who paid lots of money to go to rehab centers, and they never worked.

They ended up hanging out the whole night. She found an open heart and someone who was willing to listen to her cry for help. When the morning came, he offered to take her to the church. They took the bus, but she got off half way there. “He was upset and discouraged when I got off the bus. I told him that I would go, but first I had to see someone.” She wanted to tell her mother and her best friend that she was going to try to live a better life.

The next morning, Perry and her mother went to the church together. The church members welcomed her and set her up inside the Women’s House. There, she began every day at 6 a.m. with prayers and readings of the Christian Biblical Instructions Book. Perry stayed in the program for a year and half, but she eventually was kicked out because she couldn’t get along with one of the church members.

She went back to her life on the streets, but it didn’t last. One weekend, while partying with friends, she took a good look at herself in the mirror; she did not like what she saw. She left the party and went back to the church. She had been gone for two months, but when she went back, it was for good.

That was more than 17 years ago. She’s still a member of Victory Outreach Church, and now she holds two jobs-one as a mental health worker at the Medical Hill Rehab Clinic, and another as an employment program developer. Today, she reaches out to young girls by telling them about her experiences, warning them about the dangers of prostitution, and offering them warm meals or travel fare to go back home, if that’s what they want.

And she’s even getting some help from the state. A couple of months ago, Assembly Bill 499 were signed into law, which will help social workers and others reach out to girls on the street. Nearly a hundred young women were arrested for prostitution in Oakland in each of the last two years. Now they’ll get the chance to go to a pretrial diversion program. They will be treated as victims rather than criminals. It’s an opportunity Perry never got.

“I’m so happy they passed the law because in the past, the girls were looked at as the problem and as criminals, and that’s how they were treated,” said Perry. “But now, they’ll be treated as victims. The girls used to be sent to jail, but the pimp never was. The tables have turned a little bit now.”

Back on the streets of East Oakland, Perry hopes to explain the benefits of the new law to young prostitutes. “I explain it to them … and help them understand that there is an option and they can be free,” she said.

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