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The Risks They Run

The risks runaways face are endless: Malnutrition, psychological disorders, HIV infection and other sexually transmitted diseases, unwanted pregnancies, drug and alcohol abuse, robbery, and sexual and physical assault have all been found in high proportions among these young people. One study found the rates of major depression, conduct disorder, and posttraumatic stress were three times as high among runaway youth as their peers.(5) HIV may be 2 to 10 times as prevalent among runaway and homeless youth than for other adolescents.(6)

Jo Mestelle of the National Network for Youth started working with runaways in the 1970s. She says today the streets are much more violent and it is easier for kids to obtain illicit drugs - and the drugs are more potent and include new substances, such as heroin and Ecstasy. In addition, she says, prostitution rings actively recruit young people on the streets.

Life on the streets is a struggle for survival. Says the National Runaway Switchboard, "They may start by panhandling for change, but eventually a runaway will most likely turn to illegal means to survive; many will become involved in prostitution, pornography, drugs, stealing, and other crimes." Other kids engage in "survival sex," tacitly exchanging sex for a meal, a place to stay, or protection. Kids who have or develop intravenous drug habits they must feed are the ones called most likely to engage in crime or survival sex.

The Tuscon Scene

In Tuscon, where as many as 200 kids live on the streets in midwinter, some sleep in decaying buildings for $5 a night, and more than a dozen may crowd into a motel room for a couple of nights when it's cold, according to Jackson. They survive by panhandling, working odd jobs, and taking advantage of emergency shelters, a food box program, and hot meals at churches.

Some girls are sent across the border into Mexico to run drugs or work as prostitutes, Jackson says, "because they're young and starry-eyed and [they believe] 'Billie Joe really loves me.'" The Billie Joes, he says, use promises of glamour to snare them, then keep some in Mexico for a year or two.

Some street kids survive by finding a kind of oasis. Our Town Residential Manager Anna Clemans tells of a boy who has been on his own since he was abandoned at age 10: "He would...stay with people as long as he could. Then he would leave if things came up. But he always went to school. He graduates high school in May and is accepted into our university here."

"For some kids," she says, "that's their sanctuary, going to school. Maybe it's a job, maybe's it's a youth group. That's their sanctuary."

Jackson adds, "For some, it's just their peers. A lot of kids who end up living on the streets have found surrogate families out there. In fact, the language of the street even reflects that. They call each other 'street brother' and 'street sister.'" The young adults who keep an eye on younger kids are called "street mom" or "street dad."

"They'll say, 'I've got a home. I just don't have a house.' That home is that surrogate family... people who support them emotionally and physically out there."

Why They Run

Those in the field say kids always run for a reason. "Something has gone wrong," Jackson says. Kids are unlikely to leave a good home, he says, "unless they have some sort of emotional or psychological issues that preclude them from being attached to that family." He calls running "a cry for help," a sign of unaddressed problems at home.

Some kids run because of severe forms of everyday family conflict - difficulties with a stepparent, sexual orientation, sexual activity, or pregnancy. In blended families, for example, where women bear new children and need to concentrate on them, tensions abound. Some teenagers, given an ultimatum to toe the line, feel they are being told to leave - and do.

The usual suspects in family trouble - poverty, child maltreatment, substance abuse, and domestic violenceÑalso figure in kids fleeing. According to two 1997 studies conducted for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), 46% of runaway and homeless youth reported being physically abused, 17% reported being sexually exploited, and 38% reported being emotionally abused.(7) In a survey published by the National Association of Social

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