Agencies in Idaho directed federal funding to safe house despite complaints and contractual violations [Video]

By Kelsey Turner and Wilson Criscione / InvestigateWest

Within days of leaving the safe house, Ally decided she needed to put it all in writing — the control, manipulation, the feeling like she’d been “trafficked and exploited” by the very place that was supposed to help trafficking survivors like her.

She’d been at a safe house run by Community Outreach Behavioral Services, or COBS, an Idaho anti-trafficking nonprofit, for little more than a month in fall 2023 before she found the courage to leave. She hoped to prevent other women from falling prey to the program by filing a complaint to the Idaho Council on Domestic Violence and Victim Assistance, a state granting agency for programs serving crime victims.

“I would not recommend the COBS program to anyone at all and they should be investigated,” wrote Ally, 25.

The detailed complaint describing the restrictive and unsafe environment at the COBS safe house wasn’t the first time a state or local agency in Idaho heard red flags about the …