It is estimated that there are 3.5 million homeless Americans and 1.35 million are children (18 and under); 50% of these children are 16 or older. Most of whom are considered unaccompanied youth. The law describes unaccompanied youth as children not under the supervision of their parents or legal guardians. When unaccompanied youths are forced to live on the streets they become more vulnerable to developing a drug addiction and being abused or trafficked. According to the 2010 Annual Homeless Assessment Report to Congress, 1.1% of unaccompanied youths ages 13 to 17 stayed in a shelter at one point during a three-month period. This is simply because there are not enough shelters dedicated to housing unaccompanied youth.
Most shelters that are not specifically dedicated to housing unaccompanied youth will not accept minors. This is because shelters know that most unaccompanied youths are runaways, so the possibility of the minor seeking shelter being a runaway is very high. Giving shelter to a runaway is illegal because anyone under the age of 18 running away from their parents or legal guardians is considered a fugitive.
Another cause of this homeless youth shelter deficiency is funding. Lack of funding is a major issue for many private shelters. The Runaway and Homeless Youth Act provides government funding for shelters, if they follow strict rules. Shelters given this funding can only allow 20 youths at a time, must contact the parents or legal guardians, and maintain “proper relations with law enforcement personnel, health and mental health care personnel, social service personnel, school system personnel, and welfare personnel.” Contacting the parents or legal guardians can be extremely difficult seeing as most of the unaccompanied youths’ parents are homeless or the children have runaway from abusive homes. If the runaways know that the shelter will contact their parents or law enforcement officials, they most likely will not stay and will be forced to live on the streets again.
That is really terrible. I really hate when children have terrible lives or circumstances. I think that the law for creating a youth homeless shelter should be altered because of the fact that the parents contacted could be dangerous towards the child. Regular shelters (for adults) should allow children to stay for a few hours until the police come. Then they handle the situation from there, keeping the child safe if they are afraid to go home.
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