The bright yellow fliers posted along Sepulveda Boulevard dare street walkers to try a new path. Some take up the offer, though the women are suspicious as they enter the air-conditioned office building in Van Nuys.

What's the catch? Will I be arrested? They ask these questions as they rest on couches and listen to music while someone offers them low-calorie snacks, travel-size toiletries and free condoms.

Dianne Amato is the Program Director at the Mary Magdalene Project, Inc. facility in Van Nuys, CA. The center, which helps prostitutes find a new life, is the first of its kind in LA. (Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer)

But this is no trick.

The prostitutes who visit the Mary Magdalene Project's drop-in center find a place to catch their breath, escape a pimp and, maybe, leave behind "the life," for good.

"It's hard to get people to care about prostitutes," conceded Martin McCombs, executive director

A sign greets visitors to the Mary Magdalene Project, Inc. facility in Van Nuys, CA. The center, which helps prostitutes find a new life, is the first of its kind in LA. (Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer)of The Mary Magdalene Project, a 30-year-old agency that provides long-term shelter in a Reseda home for women who want to leave prostitution.

"People don't want them in their neighborhoods, but we see it differently," McCombs said. "We see them as victims. Some of these women have horrific pasts."

The recently opened drop-in center on Haskell Avenue is the first of its kind in Los Angeles. Its purpose is to offer a bridge between the pimp-controlled streets and the residential home, where prostitutes seeking a new life can receive counseling and learn new skills, McCombs said.

According to the Mary Magdalene Project, 85 percent of female prostitutes were sexually abused as children. Nearly 80 percent have mental health issues and abuse drugs. And many women who work as prostitutes have three or more children. The Los Angeles Police Department makes about 1,000 prostitution-related arrests each year in the San Fernando Valley - a figure that has remained flat since the late 1990s.

But with motels, liquor stores and bars serving as a backdrop, the Sepulveda Boulevard and San Fernando Road corridors remain hot spots for street walkers and prostitution-related loitering in the San Fernando Valley. And it recurs in cycles, usually increasing during the summer, when "circuit girls" are trafficked by pimps to Los Angeles from Fresno, Las Vegas, and even as far off as Hawaii.

Teenage prostitutes wanting to leave the life have turned to the well-known Children of the Night, a San Fernando Valley-based shelter that includes a school where they can earn their high school diplomas.

But older women have no such resources, said Dianne Amato, the program director for the Mary Magdalene Project, named for the biblical disciple who for centuries was miscast as a prostitute.

A sign greets visitors to the Mary Magdalene Project, Inc. facility in Van Nuys, CA. The center, which helps prostitutes find a new life, is the first of its kind in LA. (Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer)

"It's such a population that is ignored," said Amato, who has experienced the struggle firsthand.

Amato became a prostitute at 15, even working Sepulveda Boulevard, before deciding at age 35 that she'd had enough. But there were no such centers, no one to talk to. On her own, she enrolled in college, sought counseling, and eventually earned a bachelor's degree.

"I think people look at it as a choice, but what they don't realize is a lot of women who have hit the streets at 13 years old have been kicked out of their homes," Amato said.

Older women are less resistant to leave prostitution but are more difficult to help because of deep-rooted psychological problems, including post traumatic stress disorder, a result of "crazy clients, and beatings from pimps," Amato said.

"If you do anything long enough, it becomes normalized," she said. "But you're also in a state of battle-ready all the time."

Funded by the grass-roots effort called We Change L.A., the center has the support of the Los Angeles Police Department and the City Attorney's Office.

"It's really nice to see the police in that mode," Amato said. "Every time I was arrested, I was denigrated, so it's nice to see the police want to take a social role."

Patrol officers can identify women who want to leave prostitution and will try to steer them to the drop-in center, said police Capt. Ann Young, the commanding officer of detective support and the vice division.

"Our officers come across women on a daily basis who are ready to come off the street, to turn their life around, but there were no programs we could turn to," said Young, who sits on the Mary Magdalene Project's advisory board.

"With the LAPD being involved, it's our hope that we are able to take part referring women in need."

However, the LAPD's support doesn't mean that prostitution will be allowed to thrive, officials said.

"Our partnership is helping to get the word out," said LAPD Lt. Robert Marino. "But our position is we're going to enforce the laws in the San Fernando Valley.

"We're not going to turn a blind eye to this. Our position is not going to change."

The Mary Magdalene Project was founded in 1980 by the West Hollywood Presbyterian Church with a $30,000 grant from United Presbyterian Women and overseen by the Rev. Ann Hayman. The goal is to help women stay off drugs, receive job training, and take mental health classes at a residential home until they are ready to live on their own.

But with housing and medical costs rising, primary funding for the Mary Magdalene Project can no longer rely on religious institutions. And few women even know about the residence, which is why the drop-in center was created.

A fundraiser will be held in October at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, a venue that McCombs said was a bit symbolic.

The glorification of pimps in hip-hop lyrics, and Hollywood's glamorized notion of female prostitutes share some of the blame for the lack of resources to help these women, McCombs and others say.

McCombs noted that many Hollywood actresses have won an Oscar for portraying a prostitute: Anne Baxter ("The Razor's Edge"), Kim Basinger ("L.A. Confidential"), Jane Fonda ("Klute"), Janet Gaynor ("Seventh Heaven"), Susan Hayward ("I Want to Live"), Helen Hayes ("The Sin of Madelon Claudet"), Shirley Jones ("Elmer Gantry"), Donna Reed ("From Here to Eternity"), Mira Sorvino ("Mighty Aphrodite") Elizabeth Taylor ("Butterfield 8"), and Charlize Theron ("Monster").

"Pretty Woman' was such a man's concept of prostitution," McCombs said. Julia Roberts won a Golden Globe award for her portrayal of Vivian Ward in the 2000 movie, stirring up fantasies among younger prostitutes of being rescued by a rich man.

McCombs and others hope the drop-in center will be as successful as a similar program in San Franciso, called SAGE. Standing Against Global Exploitation was founded in 1998 by a former prostitute, Norma Hoteling, who died earlier this year.

"We have numerous components to the program," said Francine Braae, co-executive director of The SAGE Project SF. "There's no shame involved, because many of the staff have been in similar lifestyles."

The challenge will be to gain the women's trust, to convince them that while flipping burgers isn't as lucrative, any path is better than prostitution.

"We want to plant a seed in these women's minds," Amato said. "Hopefully, little by little, there will be women who will want to get out. It's important, because we have to remember, these women are someone's mother, daughter, sister, or wife."