The New York Times posted a powerful video and article focusing on the lives of homeless youth.   It’s really interesting and intense to see and hear about the lives that these young kids have.

The video does a good job capturing the struggles that these young people go through: having enough to eat, finding a place to keep their belongings, and avoiding authorities.  It’s a short 7-minute clip that I highly suggest you watch.

The article goes deeper and brings out the number of runaway youth (The best measure is the number of contacts with runaways that federally-financed outreach programs make.  In 2008, that number was at 761,000) and the various reasons that got them there.

I think that having a journalistic approach to this issue gives it a depth that most people don’t think about.  It shows the real situations these kids are in and some of the failures in the system.  I definitely learned things about homeless youth that I hadn’t known before.  Take a look yourself and share your thoughts with us.

[via Change.org]