homelessness leads to desperate measures .. it's really horrible.

Drugs and alcohol can ruin a teen's chance to be integrated into society.
narconon

I really like Home to Harvard, solid movie.

Statistically I think that it makes sense that 1/3 of all the homeless are teens due to run-aways and homeless families. But at the same time I feel like I never see homeless teens...

We can all do something! StandUp For Kids is a national non-profit, powered by volunteers, who go to the streets to find and help empower homeless teens to survive life on the streets and help them move towards life off the streets. www.standupforkids.org

I would imagine that teens are homeless for many different reasons--including an underdeveloped frontal lobe. The frontal lobe is a region in our brain that is involved with reasoning, planning, abstract thought...and becomes fully developed in our 20's. There have been plenty of studies done on this topic, and it is easy to research on the net.

The upside of a frontal lobe in the growth stages is that the brain is ready and responsive to special kinds of education that it is not later in life. For example, a teenager may pick up on a new language, or technology faster than an adult.

The downside of an underdeveloped frontal lobe is that teens and adults may have a difficult time communicating with each other, because we’re not on the same reasoning level. Underdeveloped reasoning may lead to risky behavior, such as creating friction in a home, running away, drug use, etc…

I think the biggest cause of teen homelessness is their home life. This issue is so sad and I don't know what I'd do if I was in that situation. Still, there is hope.
I know a woman who was just a normal teenager, but she was having some trouble at home. Her parents were getting a divorce, and I guess she was taking it pretty hard. So one night after her parents were divorced, she went out with some friends but wasn't able to get home. In order to get to her house, you had to go over a draw bridge, but it was up for the night, so she had to stay with her friends. When she did get home, her mom totally blew up, and that was too much for her to handle. So she moved out and lived under a bridge for her senior year of highschool.
However, she didn't give up on graduating, she actually had a construction worker wake her up every morning so she could be at school on time. I think she got things worked out with her mom after awhile, and now she's a very successful woman.
So I guess what I was trying to illustrate through that story was that if teens get help, they can still do something with their lives. The question is: what can teens do to help homeless teens?

The main cause for homeless teens is child abuse or negligence.
A lot of teens are runaways because they really can not deal with a lot of the traumas happening at home.
The majority of teens on the streets have gone through abuse. This is delineated in Mary J Blige's "Run Away Love".

I encourage everyone to get involved to help homeless teens. Do a search on the volunteering portal here at DoSomething. I found this great organization in Berkeley called Stand up for Kids that deal specifically with homeless teens and how you can reach out to them.

Hey beautifulblueish, nice to see you on the boards! I'm glad your part of it and explore the site like crazy, there are posts everywhere!!! This could be a start of a beautiful project. I've got so many ideas, but we'll have to start working on them now. I'd like to hear more about your history and I'll tell you mine. See you tomorrow!!!!!

I totally agree with you on that one, please we need to help let's do something about it, what's this site for if we don't do anything about it, but I know exactly what the poor teens are going through, I was in that shoe, but now I live with my grandma but I was in that shoe for 5 years straight, when I went to school people would laugh at me, call me names, tell me that I looked dirty and how I don't take baths, it's not the color issue it's the the people issues (PERIOD)!!!. I went through that all of my life and there were some harsh things that were always said about me, but I had no other choice but to just live through it. The reason why I'm telling my experiences is because I want to do more than just talk, I want to help in anyway that I possibly can. I'm all about positive thinking towards the future.

hey, you know teen homelessness is real sad because so many kids are age are getting hurt, shot or even raped. We can help these kids try to have better lives. We can even save them if we put forth the effort. Just imagine you in that situation.............

Where can we start? Working with agencies, kids, parents (most will be in denial), counselors. How can we get this to go away and make home life more pleasant for teens??? ANY IDEAS???

I did some volunteering today with the Night Ministry, and we talked a lot about teen homelessness. Some of the reasons of teen homelessness were:
-substance abuse (by child or parent)
-physical abuse
-emotional abuse
-sexual abuse
-for teenage girls, if they get pregnant and their parents get angry, or if they're living with the person who got them pregnant and the two of them break up
-for bisexual, gay and lesbian teens, if their parents their parents don't accept their way of life
-the parents losing their job/s
-medical issues (in child or parent)
-physical or mental handicaps

Yeah thats a big part of it.

i think the number one cause of homeless teens is family and stress

Well I do not think that i an count on two hands the amount of people/ friends i have met that have/ wanted to leave home and go away because of their parents or overall family scene. For example one person i know was very close to getting on a train with another girl and moving to Hamilton, they were going to work at Tim Hortins, and live in a cheal hotel becuase they could not stand their home life. Also these teens that are homeless do not want to die obiviosuly becuase they woudl have just commited suicide before they ran away, so that is not really an option. Parents are the only thing i can think of Drugs would get oyu kicked out of the house, Achohol addiction as well. Teens leave becuase of their surrounings.If your mom is a drug addict and your dad beats your mom and is also a drug addict thenn your future was handed to you when you were concieved in the back of a ally way some where!

We need to help these teens by
1) first stopping their parents or taking them out of their house (FAX)

2) stop letting cigarettes from being sold

3) promote a heathly environement (show them what the will look like after 7 years in rehab and 5 years in jail)

4) Stop peer presure

5) and by encouragment, help your friends help them!

From what i see media is more consummed with who died in downtown Toronto then the homeless teens that saw it.

People need to look deeper into these things!

Their is alot of homeless teens in Warsaw N.C. and its cause their paretns have abanding them from their homes and dont want them any more and they feel like that they are no need to be here anymore.
The homeless center is trying to help them and they dont watn help cause they were told that they were no use for nothing.

Gweiner who is the author? Homeless To Harvard is a Lifetime movie FYI

I actually have never seen Home to Harvard. I will rent it this weekend.

A book/autobiography that I remember reading about teen homelessness also dealt with drug use. It was called Go Ask Alice.

I feel like drug use and family response and support systems have a lot to do with teen homelessness.

LaLa05 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi, gweiner! Did you ever see that movie Home to
> Harvard. It's one of my favorites. It talks about
> a family with drugatic parents who have 2
> daughters. One goes to live with the grandfather
> while the other is put out on the streets. I can't
> tell you the rest because then I'll just ruin the
> story. Why is it that 1/3 of homeless people are
> teenagers? Poverty, carelessness? I'm going to do
> some searching on this. I'll write back!

Hey LaLa, see my post on Homeless to Harvard on the Celeb w/ meaning forum.

well to let you know about stuff in Warsaw N.C there are many people here especially teenagers cause there parents bring up stuff to them that really dont even need to be talked about in front of people or even said any where cause I mean I go through the same stuff at my house but I learn to deal with it cause I just go to my room and shut the door and sometimes go to sleep and listen to the radio and sometimes when parents bring things up to there teenagers the start to fight, get stressed out, and sometimes resort to drugs and alchoo and do other bad stuff like the new drug meth.... and sometimes they even get abused if they tell any one at school or anything

Many kids in my school drop out or have to retake classes or do summer school. They're not homeless, but a lot of parents don't care about their kid as long as they're not shooting down the school. (Yes, that was an actual phone call between a parent and my English teacher). We should start a program, announce it over the intercom of the different schools and have people volunteer to come and tutor. We should set it up at a library, school, park, etc. This might really help some kids who don't feel like they're making it and want some help. We need to motivate people and show them that if they had some confidence in themselves they could make it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! As far as homelessness, what I can think of right now is we can watch our classmates closely. Many kids are abused, emotionally and physically and if you see any problems, report them for you may be saving them from a crisis waiting to happen!!!

I would assume that family and domestic violence are the main causes of teen homelessness. While no one should have to be a victim of domestic violence, homelessness is not necessarily a better option. What sort of programs do you think should be available to teens dealing with domestic violence to help prevent teen homelessness?

i think the number one cause of teen homelessness is family. the issues brought up in the family cause teens to stress, fight, and as you say resort to drugs and alcohol. though admittingly a great number is added becouse of teens influenced by drugs and alcohol.

~mind
~of
~Mindie

Hi, gweiner! Did you ever see that movie Home to Harvard. It's one of my favorites. It talks about a family with drugatic parents who have 2 daughters. One goes to live with the grandfather while the other is put out on the streets. I can't tell you the rest because then I'll just ruin the story. Why is it that 1/3 of homeless people are teenagers? Poverty, carelessness? I'm going to do some searching on this. I'll write back!

Talk about Teen homelessness issues here.

What do you think the #1 cause of teen homelessness is? Drugs, school, or family