One of the little known organizations we work with is HomeBase Youth Services ("HomeBase"), which is located here in Phoenix. This organization is dedicated to reaching out to a little known population of kids, between the ages of 18 - 21, who have become trapped on the streets. The following story describes how these kids, who HomeBase is trying to save, wind up being victimized.

Imagine the following situation.
Try to imagine the following situation. You are 18 years old and still in high school. When it comes to the standard things that kids your age are expected to do, you've not only done well, you have excelled beyond expectations. You are always on the school honor roll. You have even been elected president of the student body of your high school.

Even kids from upscale families fall into this trap.
You live in a very nice, upper middle class home in a lovely neighborhood. You're popular with other kids. You always seem to have money when you need it. You have all the fun things most kids enjoy, like video games, a state of the art computer, a nice stereo system, your own television and an old, but nice looking car. You seem to have it all and appear lucky, indeed.

But you look happy only on the surface. Deep inside you, things aren't so good. Several months ago there was a traumatic occurrence at your house. Your parents were divorced. Nothing in your young life has ever bothered you so much. Try as you might, you just don't understand how this could have happened. You've wanted to talk about it, but no matter how much you tried, you could not bring yourself to talk about it. Instead, the frustration and hurt just builds inside of you; and it eats at you a little more each and every day. This is all compounded by the fact that you think, no you don't think – you are certain – that you are the reason the divorce took place.

One out of every 7 kids in the USA runs away from home at one time or another.
So the emotion, hurt and confusion continue to eat away at you, and you reach the point where you just can't take it anymore. You then decide to run away. You grab your backpack, stuff it with some clothes and your wallet. You've got a total of $94.00. You don't leave a note saying that you decided to leave, you're too angry to do that. You just leave.

You go outside and drive away in your car. You stop at a gas station and fill up the tank. That takes $25.00. Now, you're down to $69.00 in cash. You start driving west with no idea as to where you're going. All you know is that you want to get away. You get as far west as St. Louis, Missouri, and it's there that your car simply breaks down. You push and guide it over to the side of the road and are unable to get it started.

A policeman stops to help, but both of you are unable to get the car started. You tell him you are on your way to visit a friend in Arizona, and don't have money to get the car repaired just now. You ask where the bus station is. He not only tells you — he takes you there. Maybe he should have been more suspicious, but you're 18 years old and show him you have money for a bus ticket. Besides, he's got his own problems.

Many runaways end up in Arizona.
The bus station is only too happy to sell you a one-way ticket to Phoenix, Arizona. After paying for the ticket and buying something to eat, you have just a few dollars left.

You spend most of the time sleeping on the bus and wondering about your new life. Once you arrive, it's not anything like you expected. Both your backpack and the tired, dazed look on your face are a dead giveaway. The predators who hang out at the bus station know instantly you are a runaway, and that you will be their next prey.

Predators wait for these kids at the bus stations.
Once outside, a man walks up to you and says "hi." He asks if you're new here, and then asks if he can help you find a place to stay. He seems way too friendly. You're no dummy, so you run away. He doesn't chase you. He doesn't have to. He knows he'll see you again.

You spend the next few days moving from place to place on the streets. You spend the last few dollars you have on something to eat. You also start to meet other homeless kids your age, and to your great surprise, many of these kids are just like you. They tell you how they survive and what to watch out for. Some survive by prostitution, others sell drugs. Most of them do both. Many of them get high. The drug of choice is speed; some kids call it "crystal meth." They tell you it keeps them going and alert, and that most importantly, it gets them through the night.

Induction into street life doesn't take long.
A few more days pass, and you've never been so hungry. You are now completely broke, but you're also still too angry to make a phone call home. You decide to join your new friends who are pimping themselves near the downtown Phoenix library. You turn your first trick. You take a ride in a new car with a well-dressed man and engage in what the social workers call "survival sex" for the first time. You make $20. You join your new street friends, but you're so disgusted at what you did, that you get "high" with them. And the cycle that has trapped all your new found homeless friends, begins in earnest for you.

After a few weeks, you're turning tricks on a regular basis; and you also take and sell drugs on a regular basis. You do things now, that previously, you never could have imagined. You steal and you commit other crimes. On a few occasions, you were caught at the wrong place by the wrong people — by those predators your new friends warned you about — and were beaten within an inch of your life. Whatever you had of value was taken. You've never hurt so much, and felt so hopeless and disgusted. You've now been completely inducted by the streets, and have become a full fledged street person.

Many runaways refuse to call home.
Now you miss home more than ever, but you never call. You're still a little angry about the divorce, but way more than that, you're ashamed of what you've now become. You've somehow managed to fall completely through the cracks of the American dream. You feel hopelessly lost and trapped in this brutal existence. So your new, disgusting life continues. You eventually run into a "new kid" that just ran away and is on the streets for the first time — and you tell him what those others told you when you were new. The cycle continues.

This tragic story repeats itself thousands of times each year.
The story I've just told repeats itself thousands of times a year in the Phoenix Metro area (Phoenix, Scottsdale, Tempe, Mesa, Glendale, etc.), where the overall population is about 3.1 million people.

If you think this just happens to other peoples' kids, I caution you to think again. It's a known fact that 1 out of every 7 kids in our country, at one time or another, will run away from home. Runaway kids come from every social strata — from the very rich to the very poor.

The 18 - 21 year old kids fall between our systems.
But it's not just runaways that we're concerned with here. Instead, it's a special group of kids — at the most promising time of their lives — of whom we need to be aware. This group of kids is between 18 - 21 years old.

What is worth noting about this group? Well, because of their age they are too old for juvenile services. "Juvy" services are no longer responsible for, or interested in, kids who are over 17 years old. And because they are under 21, they do not qualify for state and city support services (although that's nothing worth being excited about, either). So this 18 - 21 year old group of kids, who become trapped on the streets, truly fall between the cracks in the system.

For many kids, their tragic story is almost identical.
The above story is a composite based on a few kids. But I understand that for the majority of them, this story is just about identical. Not all of them were presidents of the student body at their high school, but the vast majority of them are otherwise good kids to whom life dealt a really bad hand, and they became trapped in a miserable existence on the streets as a result. Back home, some were victims of physical abuse, others had alcoholic or drug addicted parents, and still others simply couldn't get along with their parents. All of them dealt with their problems back home by running away.

The homeless population of 18 - 21 year olds in Phoenix reaches 5,000.
It is estimated that the population of homeless 18 - 21 year old kids reaches as high as 5,000 in the Phoenix metro area during the winter (because the weather in Phoenix is preferable to other climates).

HomeBase Youth Services is there to help.
For the kids caught up in this terrible nightmare, there is only one rescue organization dedicated to finding them, getting them off the streets, and turning their lives around. That organization is HomeBase Youth Services ("HomeBase").

There are only 25 beds in the Transitional Living Center for the entire state.
HomeBase serves the greater Phoenix area, and is the only organization in the entire state that exists for this purpose. Presently, they have a Transitional Living Center where kids who qualify can live while studying for their GED; in the alternative they can get a job and start the transition to living on their own and staying off of the streets. Unbelievably, there are only 25 beds in the Transitional Living Center, and this is for the entire state of Arizona!

HomeBase provides many services to these kids.
In addition to the Transitional Living Center, HomeBase has an Outreach Center where homeless kids can come during the day and shower, get some sleep (usually just a brief nap) without fear of being attacked by predators, and learn skills to get them off the streets. They counsel the kids on a variety of things, such as how to get off of drugs, how to lead a healthy life (i.e., abstinence from multiple sex partners), how to get a GED, and how to get a job. When possible, they try to reunite the kids with their parents.

Go Daddy supports HomeBase.
I recently attended a special dinner in support of HomeBase and the new Transitional Living Center it wants to build. Go Daddy contributed $25,000 for a table at the dinner, but we've also done other things to help HomeBase –— such as buying shoes and other necessities that are provided to the kids on the streets by a traveling outreach van.

The HomeBase outreach van drives the streets of Phoenix and Tempe each and every night looking for these kids, in an attempt to help (at least a little), and to tell them about the HomeBase Outreach Center. The assistance Go Daddy recently provided to HomeBase is just a start for us. We plan to do much more for them throughout the year.

My wife and I went with the outreach van and met these kids first hand.
Both my wife and I went out on separate nights with the outreach van. Each of us witnessed HomeBase "in action." We had the opportunity to meet these trapped, homeless kids. I can tell you they are not at all what you would expect. Most are well spoken, and they look just like any other kid you might meet. It was both a surprise, and a genuine heart breaker.

Predators get to these kids within 48 hours after they arrive on the streets.
It is the rare occasion for HomeBase, when a homeless youth has HomeBase reach them before they fall victim in one way or another to a predator. It's estimated that homeless youth fall prey to predators within 48 hours after arriving on the streets. This fact, makes the already difficult job HomeBase has to do that much more challenging. The reason is that the kids HomeBase is reaching out to, have already been traumatized by the streets and it takes a considerable while to earn their trust.

HomeBase has its success stories.
HomeBase is not without its success stories. Last year, it provided assistance to over 1,941 homeless youth, and helped 10 homeless youth obtain their GED. And, with HomeBase's assistance, 35 youth were able to get decent jobs and get off the street.

Please visit the HomeBase website.
There's so much to tell about HomeBase and the problem they are dealing with, that I can't do it in just one article. To learn more about this very fine organization, and the tremendous and meaningful mission they have undertaken, I suggest you visit their web site. You can find it at http://www.homebaseyouthservices.com.

Anything you can do will make a difference.
Anything you can do to help this organization would be greatly appreciated. If nothing else, you can help by simply telling someone about their story and pointing them to the HomeBase website.