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[00:00:00] Sarah: Hello, listeners. Welcome back for another great week. My name is Sarah Karakaian.

[00:00:03] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we’re–

[00:00:05] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting

[00:00:06] Sarah: Let’s kick off this episode like we do every week, and that is sharing one of you, our amazing listeners who’s using our hashtag, #STRShareSunday. If you share it on Instagram, use the hashtag, we will find you, and we will celebrate you here on the podcast, to our entire email list, on Instagram on Sundays. Annette, who are we sharing this week?

[00:00:26] Annette: This week we are sharing @yyhminnesota. Again, that’s YYH Minnesota. And the YYH stands for–

[00:00:36] Both Annette & Sarah: Yay, You’re Here.

[00:00:38] Annette: We love that.

[00:00:39] Sarah: I love it.

[00:00:40] Annette: We didn’t even practice that. And it is the Instagram of one of our beloved members of our Hosting Business Mastery Membership, Tanya and her husband. And Tanya’s just been a part of our group for so long, and we’ve watched her just improve her properties, buy more properties, go after amazing projects.

[00:00:59] But what I want to highlight that everyone can learn from Tanya’s Instagram is– there’s three things I want to highlight. Number one is she has this Around Town Tuesday. And if there’s one thing I can tell you, just because we personally know Tanya, is her networking skills are out of this world, and they are shown with this Around Town Tuesday and the way that she gives local love to establishments in her community.

[00:01:25] And we’ve been talking lately. When you name things, you could become more consistent with it. So I love this Around Town Tuesdays, she’s crushing it with those, if you want to take some take some tips from her on that. We absolutely love the Around Town Tuesdays.

[00:01:42] Another thing I want to mention is she has really been pouring her heart and soul into her properties. And I know she just started one that it’s a rom-com theme. And Sarah and I especially like the Legally Blonde room, but we just love how she’s tastefully infused an experience for her guests in the design and having fun with it because she’s definitely a fun personality.

[00:02:04] She has a lot of Instagrammable moments too with her brand, with the, Yay, You’re Here. She has Instagram walls in her properties. And last but not least, this is the slower season. Her properties are in Minnesota, so colder there, I’m sure.

[00:02:21] But what I’ve noticed is specifically she’s changed her Airbnb listings to give her current offer. And her current offer is buy three nights, get one free. Again, it’s buy three nights, get one free. And she has right in the description, deal alert, new bookings. January, February, buy three nights, get one free. Send an inquiry, and we will send you a special offer.

[00:02:48] And I just love this. This is a go-getter. That caught my eye immediately. And I love that– yes, she’s discounting, but it doesn’t feel like a discount. It feels like I’m getting more and she’s getting those three-night minimum stays, adding that additional fourth for “free”.

[00:03:06] I think it’s a fabulous marketing play. I’m excited to see how this goes for her in January and February. If you want to be shared on the show, please use the hashtag STR Share Sunday, and we are out there looking for you, and we can’t wait to feature you next.

[00:03:23] Sarah: Today’s episode is incredibly important listeners. So it’s a heavier topic, and it’s a topic none of us really want to obviously admit exists, but it does. It exists, and we can help not only as hosts of short-term rentals, furnished rentals, vacation rentals, long-term rentals. It’s like our guest, Catherine Ratcliffe says. If you are a member of society, this conversation applies to you.

[00:03:52] And I love that we have Catherine Ratcliffe on the podcast today because she has been a vacation rental owner and host since 2018. And after an employee benefits consulting career that spanned more than two decades, Catherine is bringing her expertise to the vacation rental industry, and she’s taking on tough subjects for employers and hosts, including the global human trafficking crisis.

[00:04:14] There are tips that Catherine gives during this episode that are so simple, but the ripple effect of all of us doing one small thing today, tomorrow, implementing it into your business and your life in general is going to blow your mind because it’s like, wow, it really is. We are just one person, and we can do big things.

[00:04:40] So get ready to grab your pen and paper. The show notes are chock full of resources for you. And yes, we understand that you may not employ people in your vacation rental business, in your short-term rental business, but even the vendors we work with, there are things that we can do to protect them and to make sure the people that we are working with are on the up and up. So without further ado, here’s our interview with Catherine.

[00:05:05] All right, Catherine, welcome to the show.

[00:05:09] Catherine: Thank you so much for having me.

[00:05:12] Annette: Catherine, this is a topic. It’s a heavy topic. It’s an important topic, and we want to know– can you start at how you even became someone that could educate and could spread the message about human trafficking?

[00:05:28] Catherine: Sure. I’ve been state of Florida licensed educator in the HR space for years, and it was my focus to go through plans and working with HR directors for looking for things that maybe were a little bit amiss. And I specialized a lot with the Medicaid clinics that operate here in the state of Florida.

[00:05:51] Florida, sadly, one of our statistics is that we’re number three in the country for human trafficking. Things come to light through some of the lenses that I would look at things. And then there were a lot of personal experiences that I had come into into my life that I was just really surprised because I think when people look at the topic of human trafficking, one, a lot of people say sex trafficking, which is unfair to all of those that are labor trafficked because they do fall under the same protections.

[00:06:25] And so from a human trafficking perspective, the stats are horrifying. But also, you go to this preconceived notion that you’re talking about prostitution and migrant workers. And when you really look at the definition and the ways that it shows up in society, then you realize you’re talking about anybody and everybody that you know.

[00:06:50] And so that really became my campaign of talking to people and saying like, yes, it’s that, but it’s also this. And really focusing because a lot of employers don’t realize their responsibilities with how they could be implicated and found guilty of facilitating human trafficking without even realizing it. And that’s as simple as doing banking verification.

[00:07:18] So at the time I was working for a company that had 3,500 employees who didn’t do banking verification. So it’s not just small employers. It’s large employers that you don’t realize. So I’m married. I have a joint bank account with my husband, but if I just put in my routing number and account number, you don’t know that I have access to that bank account and I’m having you deposit funds into it.

[00:07:44] So it became this thing with spouses and children where labor trafficking was pretty in your face as you were doing some of these verifications. And then same with the dependence on health plans. And then we started looking at the stats around people don’t always go missing. A lot of times they’re there.

[00:08:05] There was an article that I believe Justin Ford shared yesterday an incident that took place in a vacation rental, where this house was being used to harbor trafficking victims. It’s the neighbors that see that. It’s looking at the relationship between, whether it’s– it can be a family member who sells that child, or that spouse, or sibling.

[00:08:35] And so really understanding the complexity of the issue and trying to bring it to a place where people are willing to take the training. Because I think the first thing that happens when you ask somebody to participate in training relative to human trafficking is they’re too afraid to know what that looks like.

[00:08:54] They don’t want to be traumatized. And they put up the walls and say, oh, I don’t live in that type of neighborhood. Or, oh, I don’t have employees. That doesn’t apply to me. Or my kids go to a good school. I don’t go to those places. And that’s actually when the real education becomes so important to say, this is anybody. If you shop in a grocery store, if you live in society, you are exposed to somebody who has been victimized, which is really important in understanding and being sensitive to the trauma language that you use.

[00:09:28] Somebody who’s currently being trafficked, because it’s not a one-time incident usually, and then also somebody who’s about to be victimized. And so understanding all of that it’s so important and no one person is going to solve this. This is going to take everybody globally elevating our awareness and being on board with the mission of ending human trafficking.

[00:09:51] Annette: In your career is when you really started to educate and learn about this. And then I know that you’re on the second phase of your career, which is in the vacation rental, short-term rental world. When did you start to see there’s going to be an intersection here of what you learned at your previous career was going to overflow into your now current vacation rental portfolio and the concerns there? When did you start to notice that? Or you knew it before you even started?

[00:10:21] Catherine: I’ve been on a number of boards and I had been an HOA president for the community that I live in, and they were trying to pass some rental regulations. And when you’re charged with an elected position like that, you have to listen to everybody and you have to bring forth votes, regardless as to what your personal opinion is.

[00:10:42] So we have 1200 homes here, and there was this big campaign, and there’s the dichotomy of the owners versus the renters. And a lot of people wanted to pass regulations regarding who we would allow to rent within the community. And it was brought up at a board meeting where somebody said, we can’t have Airbnbs in here.

[00:11:06] And I just thought, man, that is an interesting thought because when I look at the long-term renters that are on either side of me, I’d gladly take somebody that had a short-term rental. So I really honestly felt like that was part of the message to help bring home. Yeah. As you go through and you set up your operations and it’s keyless entry and all that, there’s opportunity.

[00:11:34] I think Florida has done such a good job in really driving home this message. We have a very focused attorney general on this topic, and so I’ve been involved in some of the events that they’re doing here in Florida to push this message forward. And I saw it as an opportunity as I was listening to everybody within the community talk about impending regulations that are going to come, and how do you get on the right side of legislators?

[00:12:04] In Florida, I thought this was a really great opportunity because Florida celebrates those who take 100% of their team and go through this training. You’ll be highlighted as being part of this 100% club. So I really saw it as an opportunity to both from a host perspective, make sure it surely wasn’t showing up in the places that I was running because I own and manage my four vacation rentals.

[00:12:29] So I wanted to make sure it wasn’t showing up there. I’m a mother of three children and I wanted to make sure that I was providing as safe an environment as possible and that I was getting educated. And then again, as you’re in dialogue with people, so many people put up the walls and say, that’s not something that would be an issue for me. And then you realize, no, it actually is. And in Florida, if you have a cleaner, your cleaner is required to go through annual training.

[00:12:58] Sarah: So let’s unpack this so our listeners can really apply all the information you have to their own business. Let’s make this as step-by-step as we can. So let’s start with that comment. What sort of training would a cleaner go through? What does that entail? Are we educating them on what to look for post guest checkout?

[00:13:23] Is it from the standpoint of just educating them in general on what is going on in the landscape and how they can be a part of making sure it isn’t a part of our company and on top of that, add a little color when it comes to whether that cleaner is our employee or is an independent contractor? How can we have those talks with people who aren’t our employees?

[00:13:48] Catherine: The first thing that training does is it explains what human trafficking is. So it’s the use of force coercion of a person to the benefit of someone else without any form of compensation. So it falls under both the labor, and it can be sexual activities too. That force doesn’t have to be physical force.

[00:14:16] And so what the training does is it walks you through some of the visual, verbal, and environmental cues that you may see. So the reason why individuals in the cleaning space would be looking for this is, again, post stay, they might see something, for sure.

[00:14:37] But oftentimes you have guests that show up while the cleaner’s still there. They ask for an early check-in, and the cleaner’s just wrapping up. They want to know if they can drop their bags and go to the beach, or what have you. So the cleaner, especially with a lot of the remote operations, they may have more direct interaction with a guest as well as the environment.

[00:14:59] I have a condo. It might be my unit is fine. There’s nothing weird going on with mine, but that cleaner might see something weird going on in the condo beside. So those are the eyes and ears of the operation. And so the very basic cues that you look for is signs of somebody else having control of a situation.

[00:15:18] So me as a mother, if I’ve got my four-year-old, I’m holding their hand going through the parking lot. That’s not a bizarre control situation. That would be a safety example that you would have. But you look for folks that– if my husband is holding me and not letting me go, those are some of the physical signs that you would start to look for.

[00:15:42] Somebody who doesn’t have control of their own documents isn’t– and so that could happen if somebody is having to show identification, anywhere that you would need that. Somebody who doesn’t have access to technology, they’re not allowed to be left alone. Things like that where it would start to seem a little bit strange.

[00:16:02] Somebody who physically jumps when you come near them and is timid and afraid. It’s those types of physical signs that you look for. Something’s not quite right. Now, it can also be that that person is just very shy. They might be disabled. There might be lots of normal explanations for what’s going on with that situation, which is why the training’s so important, because it gives you– and this is remote training that you can do online. It’s not invasive. It’s not like you’ve got to go and go through a long extensive, expensive course in Florida. It’s a free online training program, and you get a certificate at the end of it, and you keep that on file so if anybody asks if you’ve done it, then you have that.

[00:16:46] And it just walks you through those basics of what to look for and what to do. And so when you transition from that initial, I’m interacting with the guest. The other piece of that, when a cleaner’s checking in, best practices. You’re supposed to clear out on the television, making sure everybody’s logged out of everything.

[00:17:05] Some people might be on some apps that may not be appropriate. They might have downloaded an app and so that’s something that the cleaner can be looking at. The apps are a really important piece for individuals to take note of. Everybody goes through updates throughout the year.

[00:17:24] My iPhone sends me a ping to update. All of us go through annual updates and periodic updates. Traffickers do as well, and they use technology in a lot of weird ways. So one of the most shocking apps that I learned about, because I don’t think it’s surprising that, they use Snapchat, or Facebook, or Instagram, or anything like that to message individuals.

[00:17:50] But what shocked me the most was that there’s a calculator app that they use to communicate with victims. As a parent of a child who’s elective course in– she’s taking college classes in high school, she’s actually on the college campus. It wouldn’t surprise me if she asked for a special calculator to be downloaded.

[00:18:11] She can’t download anything without my permission. So it was really surprising when I was doing the training myself, because I do it every year, to learn that there is an app out there that looks like a calculator, but it has a little money sign at the end of it, and that’s a messaging system between a trafficker and their victim.

[00:18:29] And you don’t know what that trafficker has told that victim. So if someone has shown my child a weapon of some kind and threatened her or threatened me, I don’t know how she would necessarily react. You need to do that training to make sure that you’re in constant dialogue.

[00:18:51] So a cleaner is required to do that training because of all those reasons. They see the guests from an environmental perspective in a way that others don’t. They also are cleaning the place afterwards, so they might find something strange. I’ve had cleaners that have found straight up advertisements for women with dollar signs and discount codes and phone numbers to call.

[00:19:16] So those are the reasons why a cleaner would need to do it. Everybody should do it because that cleaner then goes and goes about their day. And one of the things that I try to promote in the additional safety is looking at, from your cleaner’s perspective, if they’re in that home cleaning it, do they have their locations on for their own safety?

[00:19:40] Because a lot of folks do. They’ll connect to the Wi-Fi, and they’re messaging with friends and family. They’re active on Facebook or Instagram. Maybe you’re asking them to take pictures through Instagram of the beach while they’re there, or whatever’s going on.

[00:19:55] If their locations are on and you’ve got somebody that’s monitoring your location, then that can put them in a safety compromise situation too. So you want to be really aware of all the different ways that it’s important for you to have everyone go through that training for themselves, for your guests, for you as an investor too.

[00:20:17] If I’m looking at where I want to buy my next property, it’s one of the things you want to look at because have there been reports of human trafficking in this neighborhood or that neighborhood? Are there any registered sex offenders in this neighborhood or that neighborhood? So going back to that environmental. They see your neighbors. They see your neighbors on a regular basis because they’re coming in and they’re cleaning every 3, 5, 7 days, whatever it is.

[00:20:45] And so they may be very aware of what your next-door neighbor their vehicles look like. And so if you see a parade of vehicles going to and from while they’re there for a four-hour clean, that might be something that they’re able to step in because they’ve been trained to help somebody within the community who’s not necessarily your guest.

[00:21:07] Annette: What can hosts look for? Are there cues in reservation requests? Before someone were to even book, are there questions that the traffickers would be asking? Are there certain amenities that they’re looking for? Or is it a length of stay? What are some things that our hosts could be aware of even before someone would book? Are there any cues out there for them to be aware of?

[00:21:33] Catherine: So the challenge with trafficking is putting any box around it because there is no real box. When you look at statistics, anything that’s close to a big event, Super Bowl is one. Florida really revamped their training right before we hosted the Super Bowl because statistically, when you have a big sporting event, then that’s when trafficking can spike.

[00:22:01] And so looking at those events that we consider compression events and we’re looking for that revenue amount. If I’m renting a place and it’s $2,000 a night because it’s Super Bowl or Stanley Cup playoffs or whatever it is, looking at maybe the profile of a guest. Again, a trafficker has no unique profile.

[00:22:28] We’ve seen instances where it’s a parent selling a four-year-old. There is no this is what they look like. Beware of that. Any due diligence that you would want to do and the same of making sure you’re not renting out to a drug dealer too. You’d want to go through what is their background. Are they a new profile on Airbnb or VRBO?

[00:22:50] I think using the tools that are out there from guest screening are very, very important. That was one of the keys in the most recent incident where, because that host had guest screening tools, he was able to work with the police in providing a lot of information. And so I think those guest screening tools are important.

[00:23:11] I think having systems within your home to flag for number of IP addresses connecting to your Wi-Fi, because yes, it could be a party. It could also be a trafficking situation. Certainly having the exterior cameras where you can to see how many vehicles are going to be here and there’s a different vehicle every hour kind of thing.

[00:23:35] Those are some of the practical things that you would want to be aware of. But again, that goes for your property as well as the properties that are adjacent around you too. So if you do have your cameras that, like mine do, they face out onto the front of my street, I’m not just capturing people that are coming to and from my house.

[00:23:55] I’m capturing the folks that are going by. And so I’m on a cul-de-sac if there’s a large parade of people that might flag me to say what’s going on. So definitely those are some of the tools that you would want to use. And again, because of how lucrative this industry is, it’s so important to understand that it can happen anywhere.

[00:24:20] If you think that by charging $4,000 a night or $2,000 a night that you are never going to have this show up at your door because you are getting luxury clientele because of the price tag, that’s a really big misjudgment of who would be willing to come in, because they might have very high paying clients that are willing to– they might make 10 times that in an hour if they’ve got the right customer base.

[00:24:48] The sad part about this is it’s sales. And so it’s like any type of sales. You’ve got a sales funnel, and it starts with the buyer, the distribution model, and then the product, which in this case is people. And that’s very important to be aware of. And I think taking that and talking about it from a sexual activity perspective is one thing.

[00:25:16] I think looking at it from a labor perspective is another, so that’s why it’s so important when you’re going through your own process of hiring your cleaner, understanding who’s doing the cleans. We’ve all had the situation where my main cleaner can’t come and so and so’s going to fill in.

[00:25:35] You’ve got to do a little bit more than just being really grateful that Susan showed up in place of Barb. How’s the compensation flowing there? Because you don’t want to have a labor trafficking situation that you are the one paying for. Because you can be in a lot of trouble if that comes down. And so going through making sure you have your W-9s. So many people just want to be paid by Zelle, and Venmo, and Cash App and all these different systems.

[00:26:05] You still need to have the backup to make sure that that’s legitimately their account. If I’m sending money to a Venmo account, I know that that’s your account. And so really verifying that information to make sure that you’re not participating on a labor perspective either. That’s just as important because you can have folks out there that are profiting off of you multiple times over.

[00:26:32] Sarah: Let’s talk about that bank verification. So what would that take? Talk us through what we would need to do to verify because, for example, I’ll tell you, with our company, we take their account number and their routing number, and we have their W-9 because they’re independent contractors and of course we get their identification and keep that on file.

[00:26:53] Is there anything else that we are missing? What is that bank verification process that we can educate all these hosts right now that are glued to the podcast to make sure that they are taking that extra step to make sure they’re not paying into an account that doesn’t belong to the person that we think it does?

[00:27:08] Catherine: Sure. So it’s really simple. It’s a voided check or it’s a statement. You can print out a direct deposit form from your bank for those that don’t have checks. And I think we went from a place where that was standard. If you wanted to not receive a physical check, you always had to provide a voided check.

[00:27:26] And then technology accelerated and now you can just enter it. People don’t have checks as much and so they just fill out the routing and account number, and it happens to me all the time. They ask for a routing number and account number. I pull up my app on my phone, and I just go ahead and fill it in.

[00:27:45] But nobody has verified that that’s mine. And so that’s that extra step, whether it’s printing off that verification that says Katherine Ratcliffe, and it shows the bank information that that is my bank account, that I at least have access to it if it’s a joint account. It’s that basic.

[00:28:02] Annette: Got you.

[00:28:03] Catherine: So these things are not super hard. It’s just that people don’t take the time to do it.

[00:28:08] Sarah: So listeners, yes, from your bank. We use Relay, and Relay does this, where they have a bank verification form where it’ll put my name, my address, and my account information. You can ask your cleaning team, hey, in addition to, whether you’re doing it digitally, you can ask them to print off a bank verification from their bank account. It is very simple. They can even download it as a PDF probably, or do you prefer it physical? Does that matter if it’s a PDF? Catherine, is there anything?

[00:28:36] Catherine: No.

[00:28:36] Sarah: Okay.

[00:28:36] Catherine: The only thing that I would say, one thing leads to another. If you have that information, now your security practices are you have to keep that safe.

[00:28:45] Annette: Right.

[00:28:45] Catherine: Because you can’t just have my account and routing number flying anywhere.

[00:28:49] Annette: Right.

[00:28:50] Catherine: But no. So yeah, it’s really that simple. It’s not that hard. And the good news, I think, in all of this, it’s not a huge lift. It’s not expensive. It’s not massively time confusing to get all of that. I would say that’s another thing when you’re asking– sometimes you might have a cleaner who English isn’t their first language and also folks who maybe are not as tech savvy, so you’re asking for their identification for that W-9 verification, like you were talking about. Who has that?

[00:29:20] So if I show up and you’re saying, yes, Catherine, I’m going to give you the job. Here’s the W-9. I’m going to need a copy of your driver’s license, or whatever verification you have, if I don’t have that and I have to get that from somebody else, that’s a huge red flag. So that’s where, why don’t you have control of your own documents? And then you as an employer or a contract worker, the thing that’s really important is to make sure that you have a written process for giving that back.

[00:29:52] So if you have an inspector who takes that information or somebody else who takes it and you say, I’m just going to copy it, and then you get busy and you don’t end up giving me back my driver’s license right that second, you don’t want somebody to accuse you of withholding their documents. You need to be very clear. I’m giving this right back to you. And that’s definitely a process you want to have in place.

[00:30:14] Annette: I feel so naive because I’ve never even thought about someone– when they do give us their bank account information that it might not be deposited into their account. I’ve employed hundreds of people over two decades, and I’ve never even thought that that would be deposited into someone else’s account. I get it now, what you said. I come from the days of, hey, you need to bring a voided check, and then you needed to give all the information. And now, like you said, it’s–

[00:30:42] Sarah: It’s so simple.

[00:30:43] Annette: Here’s my concern now. We’re educating ourselves. We see some of these red flags, and I’m going to tell you, this is where my nervousness comes in. If a host, employer, we suspect something, maybe it’s a cleaner, maybe it’s a guest, how do we go to the– who are the– is it the police that we go to?

[00:31:06] How do we share this? Because that’s where it gets a very– we’re just, I guess, speculating that we’re seeing some signs here. How do we report that? How do we safely protect ourselves, still protect that person? What would be those next steps and who?

[00:31:22] Catherine: So I think that’s really important and that’s one of the most basic things that you can do. So I try to help people understand this is like if you see a wrong way driver on the interstate. You don’t go chase them down. So you don’t want to get involved. This is because it could be completely normal.

[00:31:41] It could be completely fine, and doing the training does not make you an expert, and there’s a lot of things that you want to take into consideration. The difficult part in just calling the police is that they’re not always trained either.  I think there’s a lot of community associations that are out there working with police departments, but it’s how the information flows.

[00:32:06] So there’s an 800 number that I encourage everybody to store on their phone. And that’s just 888 373 7888. And that’s the human trafficking hotline, where if you suspect something, you call them, you explain what you’ve seen that has made you make this phone call, and then they take it from there.

[00:32:29] And you can also text be free to 233733. And that goes in to the human trafficking hotline, and they go at it from a trafficking perspective. Because I’ve had incidents where it was blatant trafficking, and I’ve called into a small police department that turned around and said, oh, it’s just porn, and wouldn’t do anything.

[00:32:54] And that’s very, very disheartening. It’s difficult. So it’s not just that we’re fighting criminals with this. We’re fighting systems, and preconceived notions, and all of that that leads you to a situation where you want to throw your hands up and go, what the heck?

[00:33:14] Because it is everywhere. And it’s hard. So the more people that talk about it, that can understand it– I’ll tell you, on the banking side, one of things that was shocking me, I had a client of mine who reached out and asked if I would meet with a relative, a young girl who was going to private school here. She needed help with an internship. And this is white collar medical professional field, not at all vacation rental related.

[00:33:46] Catherine: And she was connected with a recruiter. And the recruiter had made a lot of promises. Very nice person. Met through the school. Everything was on the up and up from what you would think. It wasn’t like a Craigslist posting or anything, but she wasn’t getting the internship. She wasn’t getting the introductions that he had promised.

[00:34:02] And it became this, I’m not going to give you the introduction or the placement unless you do X. And part of X can be sexual, it can be financial. I’ve seen it both. And they do things like they pull a Glassdoor analysis to say, your salary should be $50,000 for this position that I’m going to help you get.

[00:34:24] I’m going to get you 55, but you’re going to get that extra 5,000 for the course of your career because every raise, every cost of living adjustment is going to be based on that higher amount. So you’re you’re going to pay me that 5,000 delta. And I understand you don’t have today, but the good news is I can give you my payment information and you can just have it payroll deducted. You can just pay me. So as an employer, that can go missed completely.

[00:34:51] And that is human trafficking because that person does not have a right to those wages, and you as an employer are paying your team members’ wages to somebody else. Recruiters can get paid directly from an individual, out of their bank account, or directly from an employer, but not from an employer deferring someone’s salary or payroll.

[00:35:16] That is a wage in our– there’s all kinds of issues that come into that, including labor trafficking. So it’s really important to understand that you’ve got to push back on your vendors too as a host. If I’m a host and I have one, two, three properties, the way that you can make a difference is in asking the vendors that you work with, from the pest control companies that come in and service to your cable company, whoever you work with, and just say, I want to be part of the solution.

[00:35:45] I’m requiring all of my vendors to tell me if you have a policy on human trafficking. Airbnb has a policy on human trafficking. Booking.com has. Most places have policies on human trafficking. By continuing to ask for it and to say, I want to ensure that you’re doing X, it puts the pressure on all the vendors. We can often feel like we’re too small to make a difference, but we’re not.

[00:36:08] And we can push back on these larger organizations. So I just want to make sure that you guys are doing this, that you do banking verifications, that you do training every year, that you’ve done some form of audit. And managing those vendor contracts is just as important.

[00:36:25] Annette: I do want to let all the listeners know we will have the phone number and the text information in the show notes because I love what you said, Catherine, just put that in your phone today. Memorize it. Have it as a contact. But I love that you gave us that hot tip there of like, this probably isn’t something to call the police about if you have that direct line to the 188 number.

[00:36:47] That’s who you want to call and report what you’ve seen. But I also like that you’re like, hey, that’s where it stops. You’re not going to chase the car going down the wrong– that’s where you’re hands off. Let the authorities take care of that.

[00:37:01] Catherine, as we wrap up the show, to empower our listeners, I know you talked about some stuff in Florida, but are there any websites, anywhere where people, besides the phone number, besides the texting, that they can educate themselves more, get ahold of you? What would be next steps? Obviously after they put this in their phone, what are some next steps for our listeners to take?

[00:37:23] Catherine: Yeah. Globally, there’s the Polaris project that puts out reports every year in terms of heat maps, so you can see where traffickers are coming to and from, where the stats are per year. The human trafficking hotline is not Florida specific. It is for the entire country.

[00:37:44] I would say there’s a lot of different organizations out there that can help provide additional information within your community, certainly at various state levels. The No More Foundation is a site that provides a lot of information. And there’s the Alliance to End Human Trafficking. There’s number of different associations that you can go out to look at the information.

[00:38:10] And I would say just look at some of those most basic things. One of the most shocking things that I saw was the heat map from the Polaris project, where it shows where trafficking victims are coming to and from. And in the United States, we are the largest consumer of our own people. We are buying and selling ourselves.

[00:38:33] So that was really surprising. And then looking at Florida being number three and understanding that. Because you would think, is this somebody that’s coming in from another country that’s going to book my vacation rental for one night? Does that make them a suspect? I’m in Tampa, coming from Orlando if that’s the case.

[00:38:53] So I think just that basic level of awareness– wow, I thought this was– people always picture the movie Taken where it’s like they’re going to be abducted. They’re taken away, and they’re people in cages, and all that kind of stuff. And yes, that can happen, but what you’re going to interact with more likely is in some ways more benign and in other ways far more terrifying.

[00:39:16] And that’s where just looking at heat map and storing that number, looking at the definitions, that’s the best thing you do. You’d always connect with me on social media. I’m on LinkedIn quite a bit, and I’m posting different stats and different reports and things like that constantly, but that would be my first recommendation.

[00:39:37] Sarah: I do have a question before we sign off. When you go to the airport or any transportation place, you’ll see things in the restrooms of numbers that someone could call if they are there against their will. Do you recommend us as hosts have any sort of messaging like that in our rentals?

[00:39:56] Catherine: Yes. In Florida, we are supposed to have that. So certainly. I think, again, part of the misconception is sometimes, especially when you’re talking about familial trafficking, they don’t want be– they don’t know anything else. They’re not going to make that phone call, right?

[00:40:16] Sarah: Mm-hmm.

[00:40:17] Catherine: Because you’re talking about their mom, or their dad, or their grandmother, and they don’t know what the alternative looks like. And as bad as this is, they don’t know anything else. So you’re supposed to have it in Florida. And I think it’s a good idea, but I think it does not take the place of training.

[00:40:34] Sarah: But going back to that training too, and you gave us some listings and websites on your form when you filled out to be a guest with us, so I’ll make sure those are in the show notes and the ones that Annette just took. But when it comes to training, I know you said yours is Florida specific. Do any of these resources have trainings that listeners of our podcast can partake in? Or where should they go to make sure training is a part of their business?

[00:40:58] Catherine: Well, I know there’s a number of industry partners that are developing training programs. I think we’ve been able to bring a lot of awareness to this topic, so I’m excited to see what unfolds for our industry specifically. The one that is the Alliance to End Human Trafficking here in Florida, although it was done by the state of Florida, it’s not as Florida specific.

[00:41:20] It’s a very good intro because it gives you real life scenarios without being traumatizing because some of them are very visually traumatizing, and they can be more national. But for a lot of people, if you’re going to ask me to sit through an hour of training where I’m going to see people being abused, I’m not going to do that.

[00:41:39] I might sit there and walk away and let the video wind down. And so what I like about Florida’s program is it’s a really good introductory that you could sit with a child and talk to them about it. And it does help you have the conversations with kids. The sad thing is a lot of times, because it is familial, is you’ll have somebody on an emergency card picking your kiddo.

[00:42:06] I might drop my daughter off at school as I did today and pick her up this afternoon, and she’s in middle school, and if somebody on that emergency card came and picked her up and took her offsite for something, I would never know. So that training with that Florida program, it really talks about a lot of those things that you wouldn’t think of without traumatizing you.

[00:42:29] Annette: Is that free, or we would listen–

[00:42:32] Catherine: Yes.

[00:42:32] Annette: Oh, perfect. Okay. We’ll make that’s in the show notes.

[00:42:34] Catherine: It’s free. It gives you a certificate at the end of it, so you can keep it. What really surprised me the most when I was transitioning to looking at this from an employer perspective and benefits over to vacation rentals was this course from the state, I found out about it from Deborah Lave. She posted it on LinkedIn, and I was really surprised because I was like, I’ve been a certified instructor with the state of Florida speaking at HR Florida for 20 years, and this has never been a topic.

[00:43:08] How am I finding out about this from somebody in the short-term rental industry that lives in France? What’s going on? But it’s a really good baseline. Start there, and then as you get people more aware, you can go a little deeper if you’re comfortable. But again, as an employer, as a host, remember that you might have a victim that is within your employment, and so you don’t want to force them to watch something that is revictimize that.

[00:43:39] So it’s very important to be sensitive to– especially when you’re talking about children. If something happened to me when I was 13 and now I’m 33 working for you, you don’t want to have me quit because you’re trying to make me watch something that is going to trigger a past trauma.

[00:43:55] Sarah: Wow. Okay. Well, thank you, Catherine, so much for all the awareness and the conversation around this really important topic that I’m sure some of hosts out there, they’re new to hosting. There are so many people, just the past year or so, that are excited to welcome people, to host them. And to even think that something of this could happen in a place that was meant for so much good is a hard conversation to have, but really important, and it’s our responsibility.

[00:44:22] So thank you. We will make sure the show notes are chock full of resources, listeners, and of course, Catherine has invited you to reach out to her if you have questions. Take her up on that. Let’s all collectively be the amazing hosts we are because we are incredible community. Do one small thing by asking, like Catherine said, like our vendors, do they have policies? How can we be sure that we’re working with businesses that are very aware? And all those great tips you gave us today. With that, I am Sarah Karakaian.

[00:44:50] Annette: I am Annette Grant. And together we’re–

[00:44:51] Both Annette & Sarah: Thanks for Visiting.

[00:44:52] Sarah: We’ll talk to you next time.