Community needs to protect homeless young people

That is the answer stated by many community members when the question is asked regarding our homeless/runaway youth problem: Why don't they just go home!?

I have personally heard the asserted reply from youths. Dogs are treated better!

Kids leave home for many reasons. Those stories can be gut wrenching, especially when they share their stories of abuse. That could be physical, emotional or, the most inexcusable, sexual abuse. They might leave because they chose a different sexual orientation. But that is no reason to put a kid out on the streets.

And the consequences of hitting the streets, baseball dugouts, campers or couch surfing are devastating. Youth can become easy targets for prostitution.

On the streets, they will steal, wheel and deal drugs and will experience emergency room visits due to overdoses. And most heartbreaking, sometimes death.

Recently I personally experienced the distressing feeling of not finding a safe placement for a particular kid (over 18 years old) and knowing full well the dire straits and outcomes of street life.

I went through the frustrating process of making phone calls to many agencies without any success. Every one of those agencies was very sympathetic to this youth's dilemma. They were all very compassionate and truly concerned. But all of them had qualifiers and conditions. In other words, regulations (red tape!) to house kids over 18 years old. What an empty feeling I felt in my gut to abandon this kid to the streets, those consequences and that dead-end lifestyle.

The Mat-Su School District was providing this student a transportation voucher from Anchorage to the Valley to attend school. But this young person was up against the wall. Living in Anchorage was a setup for relapse for this youth, who had decided alcohol was no longer his solution to living.

His parents were practicing alcoholics. They wanted to be driven around to do their errands but with stops at the bars before going home late. The youth made a choice, continue with his/her education out in the Valley, recovery and get out of Anchorage.

This youth needed a new start, without the demons of past people, places and situations. Here was the rub. There was no safe place in the Valley for this youth. I had struck out. Now what? I continued to attend committee meetings and discuss the problem, which was driving me crazy.

I kept thinking about this kid and other homeless kids with the same problem of no safe harbor for housing in the Valley. Where do we go from here?

The Mat-Su Coalition for Housing and Homelessness is sponsoring the "Light for Life" event Nov. 20, at Wasilla Lake Park from 6 to 7:30 p.m. There will be a candle lighting event with testimony and fellowship.

Please join us to raise awareness and band together as we find solutions to our homeless youths' futures. Let's keep those futures bright!

And where did this homeless youth end up? After three weeks a Valley family stepped up and offered their home as a temporary host family.

If you are interested in providing a temporary safe place for a homeless youth over 18 years old, please call Dave Rose at the Mat-Su School District (745-9228, 745-0459) or Michelle Overstreet at Burchell High School (373-7775). Keep the candle burning.

Michael P. Carson, Mat-Su Coalition for Housing and Homelessness member