The first door Dorothy McCollum opened for someone in need was her childhood home. Her mother purchased the house in December 1970, and after her death, McCollum took over the property.
By 2017, McCollum began using her home to shelter youth and victims of trafficking.
This weekend, McCollum will open another door of hope for those in need at the grand opening of One9 Trauma and Behavioral Health, continuing years of supporting victims of human trafficking and abuse through her nonprofit, Ophelia Speaks. The new trauma center, located in the Harambee neighborhood at 2669 N. King Drive, will offer various holistic health services for victims of trafficking, domestic abuse and trauma, an issue that has become increasingly prevalent across the city.
The grand opening will take place from noon to 4 p.m. Aug. 9 and feature an opportunity to meet the One9 staff and other community resources. The center will offer talk therapy, medical services, art classes and eight rooms for transitional housing.
McCollum, the executive director, said she founded Ophelia Speaks in honor of her deaf and mute niece, Ophelia Preston, who McCollum said was sex trafficked and later killed in a separate incident in 1994. Preston was only 24 when she was killed.
Since 2018, Ophelia Speaks, formerly Saving Ophelia, has committed to creating “a world free from exploitation,” and offering pathways to recovery for Milwaukee victims of trafficking and abuse.
To date, the Milwaukee Police Department has recorded 28 human trafficking cases in 2025. Last August, there were 22 cases, marking a 27% increase between the years so far, according to Milwaukee Police Department crime statistics. At the end of 2024, there were 37 total cases.
The mission to carry on Preston’s legacy will continue in One9, which will offer addiction and talk therapy as well as general medical services, according to McCollum, who serves as One9’s lead therapist.
“There’s so many people in our community, Black and Brown people, who suffer with mental health, and they don’t address it, or they’re not allowed to address it,” McCollum said. “Even today, kids are not allowed to talk about their trauma.”
McCollum said sometimes the best way to help those who come to the center is to begin with a breath.
“I always ask them to breathe,” she said. “Believe it or not, a lot of adults don’t breathe. They sit there, and they’re not breathing.”
Once they have taken a breath, she prods a little deeper.
“I don’t just want them to tell me what they are feeling, but where they are feeling it. Sometimes it ends with them crying and me crying with them.”
The center will eventually offer limited, transitional housing for recently incarcerated people, but the housing will not immediately be available after the grand opening.
One9 will also host weekly art classes led by Zena Smith, a local artist who said the mission of the center is close to heart.
Between 2020 and 2023, Smith lost her husband and sister to gun violence. She said art was always a part of her life, but the trauma of losing two people close to her further cemented the need to express herself through art.
“Art can save you from so much,” she said.
The One9 center is just one of the major initiatives housed under Ophelia Speaks’ organizational umbrella. The nonprofit is also home to Allies LLC, a program that supports local teens in foster care, and Oh Snap by Shell Photography.
Ophelia Speaks will continue to offer shelter for youth and other victims of trafficking and violence at McCollum’s childhood home, near North 19th Street and West Capitol Drive.
Who was Ophelia Preston?
Preston was not just McCollum’s niece, but her best friend, she said. McCollum’s sister left Preston in the care of McCollum’s mother when she was still a baby.
Growing up, McCollum helped look after Preston and was one of the only family members who learned sign language to communicate with her.
The two were close as they lived through difficult times together. They both battled with substance use disorder, McCollum said.
Preston went missing for the first time in 1990, McCollum said.
Using a teletypewriter, a special phone system that allows the deaf to receive messages over phone networks, Preston sent a message to McCollum’s sister, Carolyn Higgs, a few days after she went missing, saying she was in Chicago and needed help.
McCollum said she and her husband drove to Chicago to find Preston. After successfully bringing Preston home, McCollum said that her niece later revealed that she was a victim of sex trafficking.
Preston went missing again in 1994.
McCollum had not seen her for a few days and did not think much of it until Preston’s daughter’s third birthday party.
“Birthdays in our family are big,” McCollum said. “It is like your own personal holiday, and we got this big party in the back of my mother’s house, and where is she at? One thing she is not going to miss is her daughter’s birthday party. Her daughter is her life.”
Following the birthday party, McCollum waited for Preston to resurface until her brother suggested she check the morgue.
What followed confirmed McCollum’s deepest fear.
Preston was found at the morgue after being raped and strangled to death, then left in a dumpster near North King Drive and West Vine Street in Milwaukee, according to 2015 reporting from the Journal Sentinel.
It took about two decades before a suspect was arrested for Preston’s murder. DNA evidence from a rape kit pointed to Melvin Jones, according to a criminal complaint.
In 2015, Jones was charged with first-degree intentional homicide and convicted the following year. At the time of his conviction, Jones was serving a 30-year prison sentence for assaulting and strangling another woman in 2001, according to the Journal Sentinel.
“It was a big relief, but I hate my mother wasn’t here to see it.” McCollum said.
Today, the “Ophelia Speaks” sign that hangs over One9 Trauma and Behavioral Health gives a voice to the voiceless, McCollum said.
“Ophelia, she couldn’t hear or talk,” McCollum said. “Now, she has a voice, and her voice rings high.”
If you or anyone you know is a victim of human trafficking, help and support is available. If you are in immediate danger, call 911. The Human Trafficking Hotline phone number is +1 (888) 373-7888. If you cannot call, text 233733 or report a tip on the website.
Everett Eaton covers Harambee, just north of downtown Milwaukee, for the Journal Sentinel’s Neighborhood Dispatch. Reach him at ejeaton@gannett.com. As part of the newsroom, all of Everett’s work and coverage decisions are overseen solely by Journal Sentinel editors.
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This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Ophelia Speaks’ new trauma center opens in Harambee
Reporting by Everett Eaton, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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