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Runaways In Their Own Words : Kids Talking About Living on the Streets
Runaways In Their Own Words Kids Talking About Living on the Streets Author:Jeffrey Artenstein Mainstream America still has a romantic image of "running away from home," an image fostered by Tom Sawyer and Toby Tyler. In the minds of many adults, running away leads a kid into a life of happy adventure. — But that's just a dream. These days, kids don't run away as a lark - they run because they are physic... more »ally or sexually abused or emotionally shattered, because there isn't room for them in mommy or daddy's new marriage.
At least 750,000 kids leave home each year. Over 190,000 of each year's runaways never go home.
The young people you will meet in Runaways are part of that "hardcore homeless" teenage population. They've agreed to tell their stories in the hopes that other kids - and adults - will learn what it's really like to live on the streets.
Living on the streets isn't just being cold and hungry. It's selling your body to buy food or drugs. It's committing whatever crimes are necessary to keep body and soul together. It's running the risk of venereal disease and AIDS - and of being murdered.
Getting onto the streets is all too easy. Getting off is nearly impossible. Many runaway teens are barely literate and have no job skills. When authorities ask why not just send them home, the answer is, sadly, that most have no home to go to. The few shelters which focus on runaways and street youth are critically underfinanced and understaffed. But they, and the runaway hotlines listed in the back of this book, are a beginning.« less