Teen Homelessness...A Fad?

A thought I've been meaning to write for quite some time now...

I was in Seattle this October '07 for about a week staying downtown. It's quite a nice place actually, and as the locals put it, a great place to live b/c it's one of the least frequented 'big cities' in America. If you can't guess why that is, then perhaps you can tell me quickly the top few things you know or have heard when describing Seattle? If you said "It rains all the time"
then we're well on our way.

Every morning and throughout the day I would take a walk from my hotel to this oversized convention center
about 6 blocks away. I'd leave at different times and take a different route as well in case any assassins were plotting my demise. My secondary motive is so that I can see as much as possible, everywhere I go. As with
every well balanced city, there were skyscrapers, beautiful echoes from people and cars, transient gusts when turning corners, and yes, homelessness. The most influential positioning of a homeless person, in my opinion, is sitting about 7 feet out into the sidewalk from the doorway of a popular shop, facing every single person departing. I don't believe a cardboard sign is necessary - the affect on the senses should be plenty...smell, looks, and either
silence or mumbling. Hey, we all mumble to ourselves somehow or another. I, too, have plans to take over the world, one coin at a time. This position is different than the guy in the center lane walking around, or the one taking turns at each corner of a 4-way stop every change of the light. I'm most turned off by the guy who crosses the street with me. His biggest mistake at this point is that I'll actually engage in conversation and ask him a bunch of questions about his state of mind - I love it. It's not to fuck with him, it's b/c I'm truly intrigued by the person who's spent more time conversing with his own head than with other humans. The stranger their answers, the more I'll tip.
A fucked up approach, I know.

I'm on a tangent and I apologize for this...I'm actually inspired to share more stories later about my run-ins
with "crazy" people. I'm more than curious when meeting them, and I think they're absolutely fascinating, not to mention more interesting than talking to many other people I run into.

So...by day three I start to see a trend, among many of course. But this trend was in regard to the homeless population. I realized that the majority of these people were teenagers. At first I just thought they were the counter culture, dressed in multiple clothes, mostly black and goth...seemingly. With the first few, I wondered how did these kids end up here already?

Then I ate at Cheesecake Factory with a few people one afternoon. When leaving, a couple in front of me
handed their leftovers to a few kids hanging out on the curb...they didn't even appear to be homeless to me. I thought they were just kickin' it. After all, this is a decent sized city, and I always see kids hanging out everywhere. While I was waiting for the crosswalk, I gazed over and saw that a few other kids came over and they were all going to town on the leftovers. I must admit, cheesecake factory leftovers are a score if you ask me.

That's all.

So I really just forgot about everything until I got on the plane. There's always plenty of time to think on a plane, and lose your mind perhaps. Of course, don't go thinking all crazy people you see and hear about just spent too much time on planes prior. Those maniacs actually have a family and home...I know b/c I'm doing my best to avoid the same future. When organizing all the scenes in my head of these teens, I realized they were everywhere, and all very young looking. So I began to think and contemplate; could some teens be acting homeless and living that lifestyle for some reason unknown to
me? I really believed the answer to that question was yes, until recently. Upon further research, a.k.a. results from my Google search (use Google more, I own the stock), I learned that in fact, teen homelessness is quite prevalent across America. Once reading, it was a bit less transparent as to why...you've got foster kids, orphans, etc, that just refuse to live with some volunteer family b/c they believe (or have already experienced) that it will be worse, more abusive, and so on. So instead, they avoid all services available for them so that they can avoid additional hell. Once their 18, they're free to do whatever they want without having to worry about some social worker picking them up and admitting them to a support program.

Overall, it's very sad and unfortunate. I can't even imagine being homeless or w/o family, much less doing so at such a young age. My only comfort (and not even comfort really) in seeing this was that it appeared they all grouped together.
They must all be very close considering potentially similar pasts, and since they're the same age that probably makes it a bit better. Still, that's no excuse. And I'm not saying go help reduce teen homelessness (apparently a majority will refuse any help other than a monetary contribution anyway). I just wanted to talk about it.

If you know otherwise, and think or know that teens really do this for 'fun' (lack of a better word), then please enlighten me. It wouldn't surprise me one bit considering all the strange things this world conjures up.

msc