Deprived of their parents' care by death, prison, drug addiction or other causes, they go it alone, even though that often means finding their own food and shelter.
They are among the city's most vulnerable young people,
but because of their efforts to go undetected, they are
also among the hardest to reach.
Many are fearful of the remedies governments typically
provide, having heard horror stories from their peers
about foster care or group homes.
"It points out a gaping hole in what is available and
the drawbacks of the child welfare system," said Nan P.
Roman, president of the National Alliance to End
Homelessness. "They are no one's responsibility."
The answers for homeless adults, Roman said, are more
straightforward. They can get housing subsidies. But
teens require not just a safe place to live but guidance
from responsible adults and other services that will
help them build a stable life as well.
"They get caught in an adult system that doesn't work
for them and a juvenile system that doesn't work for
them," Roman said.
Identifying them is a vexing problem. Locally, the city
and county departments of social services are charged
with protection, but the children often won't come
forward, and schools, police and social agencies don't
actively look for them.
"If a friend or relative does not bring the situation to
our attention, they will go undetected by our agency,"
said Samuel Chambers Jr., director of the Baltimore
Department of Social Services.
Among its 88,000-student enrollment last year, the
Baltimore school system reported 1,339 as homeless at
some point, the majority of whom were living in
shelters. Principals reported last year that they
suspected another 950 children were likely homeless but
could not verify that. Once identified, they were
eligible for services such as transportation, school
uniforms and tutoring. Younger ones were invited to a
summer camp, and teens were able to take part in a
work-study program set up by the school system.
Only 189 of the schoolchildren identified as homeless
were high schoolers, said Louise Fink, who heads the
city schools' program for homeless children. She said
that officials believe hundreds more homeless high
school students are uncounted, because they are ashamed
or afraid to admit they are on their own.
"I feel very strongly that those high schoolers should
be the first focus of our attention," she said.
They have fewer options, she said, because most shelters
won't take them. And if you are a student who doesn't
finish high school, she said, "you may doom yourself to
poverty."
The one shelter for such teens is operated by Fellowship
of Lights, a nonprofit.
The problem of teen homelessness is gaining attention,
but few solutions have emerged. "We haven't figured out
how to try to tackle that," said Greg D. Shupe, director
of the office of transitional services in the state
Department of Human Resources.
In Baltimore during the past year, several nonprofits
have discussed ways to assist homeless and runaway
teenagers, perhaps by finding a site for a drop-in
center. There, they could launder their clothes, take a
shower or spend a night.
The social services department, which is a part of DHR,
has begun to consider a similar idea.
But no one has figured out how to negotiate the
practical, legal and ethical dilemmas in such a plan:
How do you entice homeless teens who fear being forced
to accept more help than they want? And if you do
identify them as homeless, how could you let them return
to the streets?
Furthermore, many teens regard the help that Social
Services provides as nightmarish. They have heard
stories of residents in group homes being beaten and
robbed. Foster care strikes them as no better, a forced
separation from neighbors, friends and familiar schools.
One way to reduce the number of teens living on their
own, Chambers said, would be to increase the number of
foster homes in the neighborhoods where the teenagers
live.
No comprehensive national study has quantified how many
teenagers live on their own without stable housing,
homeless advocates say.
For two years, federal law has required school systems
to provide services to homeless children and to report
the number of children in shelters or who are
"doubled-up," a term that describes those moving from
house to house, with or without a parent, or who could
be living in a car or a vacant house.
In Maryland last year, school systems reported about
6,500 children who were homeless or doubled-up. In
Virginia, about 7,000 children were identified, said
Patricia Popp, president of the National Association for
the Education of Homeless Youth. The figures across the
nation, she said, are really estimates as schools
systems get used to compiling them.
In cities, the numbers range from about 10,000 students
in Philadelphia with an enrollment of 250,000 to 1,325
in the Cleveland public schools, which enroll 65,000
children.
"Kids are amazingly resilient, and they will find a
way," said Ross Pologe, executive director of Fellowship
of Lights, the nonprofit that runs the only teen shelter
in Baltimore. But "it is hardly a smooth path, and the
downside risks can have frighteningly tragic results."