Ex-prostitute goes from crackhead to life-changing confidante
By JOHN IWASAKI
P-I REPORTER
Seattle, Washington - The cars stretched for blocks on Aurora Avenue North at dusk, a string of drivers waiting at a red light at North 85th Street.
To Nature Carter-Gooding, a former prostitute and ex-cocaine user, a traffic backup once meant good business.
"All those cars are considered money, know what I'm saying?" she said as she stood on the busy corner one evening.
Carter-Gooding, a 37-year-old grandmother with a weakness for peanut butter cookies and clearance sale shoes, still regularly treads up and down Aurora, past seedy motels and darkened doorways.
But these days, her mission is not to attract furtive "dates" but to pass out fliers.
"Hey Girlfriend!" the scrap of lavender or pink paper reads. "Have you ever thought about leaving prostitution for a better life? Come and let us show you how."
Inviting streetwalkers to an intervention program is one of many duties for Carter-Gooding, women's program coordinator for Street Outreach Services, a non-profit agency in Seattle that serves people at risk of contracting HIV and sexually transmitted diseases.
She runs a support group for women leaving prostitution, and helps lead them into treatment and sometimes government assistance. She also is a case manager for Clean Dreams, a peer outreach program in Rainier Valley for young adults who have been arrested, or are at risk for drug use or prostitution.
In her spare time, she and her husband, Charles Gooding, a social worker for Public Health -- Seattle & King County, are establishing a transitional home for ex-prostitutes.
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