ABSTRACT
Sometimes we see them. We see them in hot pants and halters in New York City, tap-ping on automobile windows, asking drivers if they want a “date.” We see them in Los Angeles, waiting for a sexual rendezvous that will bring them 25 dollars or dinner and a place to sleep. Sometimes we don’t see them. We don’t see them being smuggled into friends’ basements. We don’t see them sleeping under a plastic tarp in the woods. And, we don't see them living as concubines in migrant labor camps. And, sometimes we see them, but we don’t recognize them. We don’t recognize them because they look like the other teenagers talking to their friends in malls and on street corners. But unlike other teenagers, they cannot go home to a meal and a bed. They are runaway and homeless youth. They are among the poorest of America’s poor. They lack not only money and homes, but positive peer relationships, families, and the other social supports that most Americans can take for granted.
