How Kids (Like Yours) Get Trapped on the Streets

February 15, 2005 6:54 PM

How Kids (Like Yours) Get Trapped on the Streets Bob Parsons gives a chilling summary of how the vortex of homelessness can suck young people into a world of drugs and prostitution even faster than you might realize. (Makes you wonder how many MeFi users might be in this exact situation.)
posted by oissubke (42 comments total)

The drug of choice is speed; some kids call it “crystal meth.”

...and there goes the credibility.
posted by bingo at 7:00 PM on February 15, 2005

I don't know that I'd write the whole article off on that alone, bingo. I think that's an attempt (albeit an awkward one) to try and translate the drug slang of one generation to another.
posted by jonmc at 7:12 PM on February 15, 2005

there's a lot more going on in homes than just divorce--weird that he never mentions that abuse happens there too--not just on the streets.
posted by amberglow at 7:15 PM on February 15, 2005

Maybe it's just me, but I would think that in this day and age, after a gazillion "look what happenes when you run away" movies on ABC After School Specials, NBC Movies of the Week, and Lifetime TV, most kids motivated enough to leave home would be well aware of the dangers involved.
posted by Oriole Adams at 7:17 PM on February 15, 2005

Bingo, I think you missed this part.

You join your new street friends, but you’re so disgusted at what you did, that you get “high” with them.

I could sit here and spend another 10 minutes trying to find
the right words to make fun of that sentence, but I actually have something serious to say.

Can anyone really believe that a parents divorce, absent of any other causes could really make a kid run away and become a crankhead prostitute? I mean, come on. Even the most bitter divorce couldn't cause problems that deep seated, especially if the kid was already 16 or 17 when it started happening.

And besides if you were a "popular honor student who always had money" couldn't you stay with friends?

And how's this for a plan, apply for a job at walmart, or target or any other cheap labor place. I mean hell, go pick fruit with illegal aliens or whatever if you're in Arizonan or California like the article talks about.

It's entirely possible for an 18 year old to make it on their own without their parents help. A lot of jobs don't require a high school diploma, etc.

Man, what a dumb article. I'm not saying this sort of thing doesn't happen, but when it does it's not because of something as simple divorce. You'd need to have fucked up parents, maybe a drug problem already, who knows.
posted by delmoi at 7:18 PM on February 15, 2005

Hmm... there's this near the end.

The above story is a composite based on a few kids. But I understand that for the majority of them, this story is just about identical. Not all of them were presidents of the student body at their high school, but the vast majority of them are otherwise good kids to whom life dealt a really bad hand ... Back home, some were victims of physical abuse, others had alcoholic or drug addicted parents, and still others simply couldn't get along with their parents. All of them delt with their problems back home by running away.

Apperantly this guy is actually working with services that help these kids, so the target audience is not kids themselves, but rather 'normal' people who have never been "high", but might have delt with a parents divorce. He's trying to build empathy for them by relating their experiences with the readers.
posted by delmoi at 7:31 PM on February 15, 2005

The problem, even for a "popular honor student who always had money" is that kids are impulsive by nature, and a lot of them are stubborn as well. It's easy for me to see how an impulsive act like driving away from home with little money, could lead into a trap like this. I'm a parent, have had kids act on impulse... fortunately, most of the time things worked out in the end. Still, a late-teenager cannot be expected to always reason things out rationally when blinded by emotions. It's easy to forget the emotional surges one gets when young. I still get this feeling of dread, even 35 years later, at some of the things I did as a teenager that were just completely impulsive, and could have lead to less than desirable outcomes. Angels and ministers of grace defend the young... because they need it. I've been blessed numerous times, and I know some of my friends weren't.
posted by pjern at 7:32 PM on February 15, 2005

solopsist: The problem is, it's a lot more then a single impulse. It takes dedication to go that low. I mean, how hard is it, really, to call your parents. Unless there's a really compelling reason not to. I mean, I suppose if you were adicted to drugs (or maybe adicted to the wrong person) and your parents wouldn't stand for it it could cause problems, or if your parents had those problems, or if they were abusive, or whatever.
posted by delmoi at 7:40 PM on February 15, 2005

Maybe it's just me, but I would think that in this day and age, after a gazillion "look what happenes when you run away" movies on ABC After School Specials, NBC Movies of the Week, and Lifetime TV, most kids motivated enough to leave home would be well aware of the dangers involved.

Sometimes, and I'm just spitballing here, I woder if that bombardment of "dangerous teen" media dosen't have the opposite effect., making it seem like the most fucked up behavior is normal, even expected.

I'm not saying that we should shut off the flow of information or anything, but maybe we should step back and se if the constant panic mongering and breathless cataloging of misery and stupidity is really a good idea.

"The society nods it head at any horror the
American teenager can think to bring upon itself!" - Heathers
posted by jonmc at 7:45 PM on February 15, 2005

The thing that I can shake is that this article seems to be about white suburban kids getting mixed up in the larger, more evil context of "regular" homelessness and crime culture, while completely neglecting to try to stir an ounce of empathy for the untold numbers that are born there. A suburban 18 year old decides to make a dozen horrible decisions and *he/she* should get my dollars instead of a starving 5 year old who never decided to land in poverty and depravity? Give me a break. A similar meme to the (atrocious) American version of Traffic that pushed the audience to outrage that a rich white girl was trading sex for drugs and living on the edge, without so much as a passing word about the people who were born and will die in such a life.

It's just a really shitty way to think about things, I think.
posted by n9 at 7:59 PM on February 15, 2005

jonmc: Kids think whatever their friends are doing is 'normal'.
posted by delmoi at 7:59 PM on February 15, 2005

I don't think that the way they got where they are has any bearing on the fact that these kids need help.
But maybe its because I don't know the difference between speed and crystal meth...
posted by c13 at 8:00 PM on February 15, 2005

n9: Don't you mean the thing you can't shake? I think the point of the article (as I said before) is to arouse empathy in these middle-class readers who put quotation marks around words like "high". The programs this guy is funding probably help people out regardless of financial background, and he's basicaly trying to solicit donations.
posted by delmoi at 8:02 PM on February 15, 2005

The problem here is that the teenager has enough outrage to leave home over a divorce, then suddenly not enough to be outraged at prostitution?

I would think most suburban kids would just steal from their parents.

I realize this happens, often, but I think it is more a case of neglect and abuse than a divorce by a Porsche driving father and a pharmed up suburban mom.

But, I only bought drugs from runaways, so I don't know the whole story.

Then again, I'm not sure how Mr. Go Daddy knows either.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 8:07 PM on February 15, 2005

1 out of 7 kids run away from home?

No way. That's when I stopped reading this.

Not that I'm unsympathetic to sad stories, real stories, of runaway kids.
posted by kozad at 8:12 PM on February 15, 2005

ugh typo: yes, can't shake. I guess I'm just unsure of what the moral status is of an article like this. It stretches the facts so far as to be borderline exploitive in order to get donations, but it also has a creepy and transparent racist/classist tone that is just ugly. I guess it is the language of compassionate conservatives talking to compassionate conservatives.
posted by n9 at 8:17 PM on February 15, 2005

But maybe its because I don't know the difference between speed and crystal meth...

There is no diffrence, chemicaly. In theory 'crystal' meth comes as an actual crystal (like salt or sugar) but it's the same chemical.
posted by delmoi at 8:18 PM on February 15, 2005

Oriole Adams
most kids motivated enough to leave home would be well aware of the dangers involved.

most kids in unpleasant situations need motivation to stay in that environment, not to leave it.

delmoi

yeah, kids are know for their innate ability to plan appropriately when life seems to going down the toilet.
i've know ppl that had great parents and refused to touch drugs that ended up on the streets, it doesn't take much, just a chain of events(that may not even be bad, just have to affect the kid a certain way) and a straw to make him/her break.

also, no. when ppl hit the streets, they usually leave behind any vestiges of their old life and family, they'd need a compelling reason to talk to their parents.

Mean Mr. Bucket

it's not outrage that sends kids to the streets, it's their world colapsing.

kozad

1 out of 7 sounds about right, keep in mind, he says run away, not run away to live on the streets. i'm sure even you knew a couple kids that ran away from home for a week and stayed with friends when things were rough.

-
trust me on this, i've lived on the streets most of my life (since i was 13/14) and don't think i have any friends that didn't spend a significant amount of their lives on the streets.
posted by Aleph Yin at 8:23 PM on February 15, 2005

I don't know the difference between speed and crystal meth...

It's in the way they burn...


Ya know, I think every teenager goes through the rebelious period, which includes things wrong, bad and sometimes illegal.

It usually starts about 5-6th grade and continues through college.

To the teen it's experimentation, to the parent it's "on the road to hell".

Heck, I remember running away one night from home, at age 9-10 with all my stuff packed, but snuck back in around 3am.

Did my parents know? they never let on..
Maybe it was just a part of growing up...
posted by Balisong at 8:26 PM on February 15, 2005

There is a difference between speed and crystal meth. Crystal meth is crystalized methamphetamine. Speed can refer to amphetamine that is not crystal and is not meth.

However, what's really silly about the usage of these terms in the article is the way that the author inverts the more technical term with the slang, and uses the whole to represent the part.

Now I think I'll have a beer, known to kids these days as 'alcohol.'
posted by bingo at 8:29 PM on February 15, 2005

Bingo, I belive the current street name is ethanol.

So Aleph Yin, I don't really know much about life on the streets, or running away and stuff, so I'm just wondering, isn't there a time when these kids realize that they've fucked up, I mean really REALLY fucked up and its time to suck it up and head back home? I mean, if I had to start doing tricks to survive...
posted by c13 at 8:55 PM on February 15, 2005

often home is worse than the street, c13.
posted by amberglow at 8:56 PM on February 15, 2005

c13

some do, some don't have that option, or don't think it's worth it. also, not every homeless kid turns to prostitution, only those that can accept it or are forced into it(then they really have no options anyway)

once you get used to begging, eating out of the garbage, and sleeping in dumpsters, it's not so bad, it's also often a gradual process.

and what amberglow said

(i should also point out that most of my experience with homelessness is in canada, a bit of europe, and a short stint in la. i've also done alot of volunteer work with homeless and high-risk kids, tho that was only in canada)
posted by Aleph Yin at 9:14 PM on February 15, 2005

While some of the article didn't ring quite true there's plenty of substance there to consider. Yes, people born into poverty and shitty lives are more morally deserving of aid than someone who's quasi-willfully chosen that path.

Why not figure out a way to help all of them? Instead of spending say the better part of a trillion bucks on the military, why not feed, clothe and house every single man, woman and child in the country? And let them go see the doctor too.

amberglow, you're right, there are some seriously bad parents and step parents in the world. Who was it that said a society is judged by how they treat their young and old?
posted by fenriq at 9:16 PM on February 15, 2005

Speaking of Canada, Toronto and Montreal really surprised me. So many homeless kids.
posted by c13 at 9:25 PM on February 15, 2005

c13

most homeless in canada tend to migrate to the larger cities that have more services to support them, less angry drunken rednecks, better drugs, ect...

this means most kids go to toronto, montreal or vancouver depending on location, some go out east, but there is less support there, others settle in ottawa between montreal and toronto(no cop has ever killed or raped a homeless kid there to the best of my knowledge) or they go to edmonton to live in the mall, not a bad idea considering how cold it can get.
posted by Aleph Yin at 9:34 PM on February 15, 2005

Aleph Yin, C13, I think we all agree here. If a teenager ends up homeless on the street, it's because of a severly fucked up homelife. If they are just angry about a divorce then they probably will call home, it never would have gotten this far in the first place.

others settle in ottawa between montreal and toronto(no cop has ever killed or raped a homeless kid there to the best of my knowledge)

Is that a common occorance in canada!?
posted by delmoi at 9:44 PM on February 15, 2005

Probably. Again, I really have no experience with this part of life at all.
posted by c13 at 9:58 PM on February 15, 2005

I work on an outreach van in New York City. We are contracted to scour all of Manhattan and the Bronx looking for "at risk youth." The street youth I interact with rarely come from the suburbs. However, many, though not all, of the youth that do come from the suburbs have been kicked out of their homes because of their sexual orientation/gender identity. These youth tend to turn to prostitution and drug use as means of survival and most of the time they cannot call or return home.

I would also venture to say that the majority of the youth that we come into contact with are those who have been reared in poverty. A large percentage of them over the age of seventeen have lived in foster homes, group homes, or violent households. Once they turn seventeen they can run away and child protective services doesn't even think of looking for them. These youth have little education, and few life skills. It is amazing how important a stable home environment is for a person's social development. Without that there is little chance of getting and/or keeping a steady job, no matter how menial. Not to mention that it is impossible to keep a job without a place to stay.

Finally, I am constantly shocked, awed and amused by some of the stories behind how my youth end up in New York City. Recently, one young girl from the South informed me that after her mother died she left home to come to New York City because she had seen Sex in the City and believed that the streets of New York City were paved with golden manolo blahniks. After seven months on the streets she informed me that she believed that Sex in the City was "false advertising." One thing that many of these youth hold onto is hope...

There are some excellent agencies in New York, such as the Ali Forney Center and Sylvia's Place, named after Sylvia Rivera, helping homeless LGBT youth, along with other agencies like Covenant House. All of these agencies (and ones in your area) need any support that individuals can give... time, money, donations.
posted by jennababy at 10:09 PM on February 15, 2005

sorry delmoi, but i don't agree, yes, homelife contributes, but it's nature is irrelevant, it's how the kid perceives it. this isn't helped by mental illness(don't make me track down the numbers, it makes me ill, let's just say the odds are against me being alive right now)

one of the main reasons i left was because i didn't believe my family could continue to support me, and still refuse to be a burden on them. my home life was good and relatively normal, my parents are wonderful and intelligent ppl whom i get along with very well. but i have gone years without talking to them.

there are plenty of other contributing factors other then homelife, imagine anything that may have stressed you out as a teen, from pop-quizzes to teasing to rejection, the potential causes are innumerable.

Is that a common occurrence in canada!?

it's happens almost everywhere, who cares about some street trash? who will ever notice? there have been a few killings and many beatings/rapes in toronto/montreal that i know of, tho at least the police are usually safe on the highway, had some friends that were raped by highway patrol while hitching through the states(north-east) and similar things in new orleans
posted by Aleph Yin at 10:14 PM on February 15, 2005

Aren't most kids from 'broken' homes these days? Seems the nuclear family ones are the rare oddballs from all that I come across.

I think the writer might want to stress more the 'had everything already' feelings he started to touch upon as I think that has much to do with not taking a Mac Job and grabbing a cheap room in a group house, but instead lazing around until desperation makes them jump at the kind of crap he's focusing on.
posted by HTuttle at 10:32 PM on February 15, 2005

How do you live in a mall? Don't they close at night? I guess you could hide out from security in some obscure section of a mall, at closing time, but wouldn't the security guards and door alarms give you away eventually?
posted by Jim Jones at 10:52 PM on February 15, 2005

Aleph Yin, please call home. Or send a note. Those wonderful intelligent people miss you. They must worry if you are ok...
posted by Cranberry at 10:54 PM on February 15, 2005

I grew up in the suburbs, and once I started taking drugs and getting into that subculture, I really started idolizing the gutter-punk homeless kids like I think a lot of kids do. Living in the suburbs, where you are surrounded by honor students with lots of money, everything seems so boring, safe, and false and you want to rebel against all of it. I am not saying that all these kids chose to be there, many people fall into bad situations through no fault of their own. But lots of kids do hate their parents and run away to live on the streets even though their parents are not bad people at all and never abused them in any way. It is a hell of a lot more fun/lucrative/better hours/no stupid boss to sell drugs or do street crime than to work at McDonalds, and while it may not be very safe, it is rarely boring.
posted by sophist at 10:55 PM on February 15, 2005

I've written off Bob Parsons as an utter slime ball.

The first two strikes were his insisting that the blatant eroticism in his Go Daddy Super Bowl ad was "fairly mild" (maybe mild for late-night TV, but not for a daytime program viewed by millions, IMHO) and then his "shoot them all" attitude to our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He's certainly welcome to share his opinion on the Internet, but he would be wise to separate his views from the public stance of his company. Because of it, I would now think twice before registering a domain with Go Daddy.
posted by Down10 at 11:10 PM on February 15, 2005

Jim Jones
How do you live in a mall? Don't they close at night? I guess you could hide out from security in some obscure section of a mall, at closing time, but wouldn't the security guards and door alarms give you away eventually?

west edmonton mall in alberta is the largest mall in the world with hotels, rolercoaster, three submarines, ect, ect, ect...
it's easy to vanish in someplace so huge and i don't think the mall itself ever locks up for the night, you could live there for years safe from the elements, mind you, the same is true for montreal and toronto with their sprawling underground networks...

Cranberry

oh i have, i talk to and see them regularly now, but i had maybe two weeks worth of contact with them during the entirety of my teen years.

sophist

while it may seem fun from the outside, and there are plenty of kids that come out to play for weekend or maybe a week during summer (often called weekend warriors or twinkies), but when they realize that they have to eat garbage, sleep outside, deal with constant predators, ect (not to mention the weather, it gets to more{less?} then -40 here before windchill, homeless ppl die every year from the cold) they only stay if they have no other option.
nobody chooses the streets.

also, i don't know many street kids that were very involved with crime or drug dealing, squatting, loitering, panhandling, perhaps the occasional break and enter or car theft(not too common mind you, i saw alot more of that in suburbia) but who'd want to bring more heat down?
as for drugs, i don't know any street kids that can afford to be dealers. if you can afford to drop down a few hundred bucks for a supply of drugs that you're just gonna resell at a profit, i'll bet good money that you have an apartment or house and aren't using it as a pillow in a dumpster.
posted by Aleph Yin at 11:41 PM on February 15, 2005

Damn it, 18-year-olds are NOT "kids". If you are at all interested in helping, stop denigrating them! Sure, they may have plenty kid-like qualities, but so do plenty alleged grown-ups.

Predators: Gee, those horrible predators! What a label. Clue: If not for a certain predator, I'd likely be dead and never have made it to college. A wise "kid' chooses his predators with care. Wait, that's not fair. More than one "predator" did his share in keeping me alive. I can't remember them all, but some still have a warm place in my heart.

Prostitution: I can only address the gay kind, I can't imagine the straight variety. Most johns want nothing more than to give you a plochop. Oh, HORROR! I am sure (NOT) this will injure for life. Plenty are happy with even less. Most are more afraid of the hustler (what we used to call gay prostitutes) than the hustler is afraid of the john.

Now there is a choice out there: Which is worse, a "predator" who offers something more secure in exchange for something they want, or selling it to unknowns? These so-called predators are often just guys who like youth both sexually and otherwise. Plenty with a sincere interest in helping.

Then there is the little matter I think I've mentioned on Mefi before: When you're a shell-shocked homeless gay youth, you are far more likely to trust the man that wants to have sex with you (because he's GAY, afterall!) then some do-gooder working for a program run by straight people. I can't think in terms of a gay-run organization for youth, such did not exist when I was still a youth.

On preview: What Aleph Yin said about drugs/crime
posted by Goofyy at 2:02 AM on February 16, 2005

kozad I'm with you on this. Once they said that 1 out of every 7 kids tries to run away from home, all credibility was lost. They either a) only took samples from kids already predisposed to running away from home or b) counted the kind of thing I did when I was a kid: sneaking out over to my friends house halfway around the block. It's a crap statistic made up to help their hypothesis and instantly destroys any credibility they have, far more quickly than the "some kids call it crystal meth" part did.
posted by Swervo at 3:44 AM on February 16, 2005

I think the reason we are expected to have some sympathy for the 'well off' kids who 'choose' a life of crankhead prostitution is precisely because if you are going to choose that lifestyle over the 'privileged' one you were born into, can we not assume that it's because something is seriously wrong? Either with the circumstances that caused you to make that choice, or your own mental health?

Also, I as far as emphasizing the descent of middle class kids over the fate of teens born into that situation, that's how you raise money. Most people have a hard time empathising with people they cannot relate to. And the folks with the cash (donors) aren't going to relate to the kid who was born to a crackhead mom and was in a gang by nine years old. And if they don't have that emphathy, there's no reason to open their wallets.
posted by Kololo at 4:31 AM on February 16, 2005

I dropped out of college at 19, packed my backpack and took a bus to Boston with US$36 in my pocket about 20 years ago. Yeah, I was lucky to survive.

This article doesn't pass the smell test. Either he was candy-coating some parts of being homeless while trying to guilt parents out of money with what he thinks they fear, or he just doesn't know what he is talking about.
posted by QIbHom at 2:42 PM on February 16, 2005

Goofyy

when i say predators, i'm not refering to sugar daddies or even specificly to sexual predators like rapists, but rather all those that prey on the homeless, from cops to jocks, gangs, mafia, psychopaths, ect...
posted by Aleph Yin at 4:22 PM on February 16, 2005

Aleph Yin: You appear to understand those differences, but, it would seem, most commentators don't. Its refreshing to hear someone state the difference! But I do think that most folks today wouldn't see a difference.
posted by Goofyy at 11:25 PM on February 16, 2005