ABSTRACT
L. Goodman and her colleagues make the case that experiencing homelessness is traumatic even for adults. These traumatic effects are magnified when they occur during a developmental period when young people may expect and need caretaking adults. Young women were at particular risk for sexual victimization, sometimes when prostituting themselves, but more often when alone and in circumstances that made them vulnerable. Only the physical victimization model is reported for adolescent males because of small cell sizes for male sexual victimization. Runaway adolescents leave family situations where they were subject to physical and/or sexual abuse for situations where similar incidents occur between peers. Adolescent girls were twice as likely to be sexually victimized than were adolescent boys. The probability of sexual victimization varied dramatically. There was a natural progression for sexual victimization of young women on their own by age, a function of increased years at risk.
