How We Found Our Runaway Teen On A Homeless Binge

A week ago tonight my struggling teen ran away from the group home he was living in. Previously he was at a residential treatment center in Utah and we were trying to transition him back home. Two years ago my son ran away and  it was the most sinking helpless feeling I “had” ever experienced. I promised myself I would never let that happen again, luckily with help from my sons friends my husband found him 4 hours later. He spent the night in juvenile hall, because he was at risk and drunk. They will not 5150 someone that is intoxicated therefore we did not want to risk him running again and the police took him to juvenile hall. End old story.

A Teen Goes AWOL
This time when my teen ran away it was an entirely different experience. Luckily I did not feel that he was at risk of hurting himself  or trying to commit suicide, but I did worry about who he may come into contact with. When we received the phone call that he had run at 1:35 in the morning, at first you cannot believe it. The next thought was where is going and I am sure he will be back. The home he was living in placed a report with the County Sheriff’s Department and it ended there. To my surprise they do not go looking for them, a teen runaway has not broken any laws therefore if during the night while the authorities are patrolling and they see suspicious activity and your teen is a missing person they will send them back or if they break the law put them in juvenile hall. But no one is really looking. There is no picture just a description, in California there are 28,000 teen runaways. Wrap your head around that, my teen one in 28,000 missing teens wandering loose and no one cares. To our knowledge he had no money or cell phone.

Friday – Reality Our Son Is Missing
The next day or 7 hours later, we learned the two boys he AWOLed with came back and my son remained missing. Now get this,  the teens that returned were not helpful any information or  description of my son. In fact they have the right NOT to talk. The authorities did not force them to give us any identifying information. Did he have a backpack? What was he wearing? We had no information, we could only guess. It was not until my husband made a BIG stink with the people at the home that one of the boys began to talk and that remained limited. How could they not know whether he had jeans on or not? Was he wearing his pajamas?

The first day, my husband and I were clueless on what we needed to do. With little information we started to piece together how we would find him and at the same time I kept on thinking he was going to walk through the door. How could he do this? We found out he had been spotted in a town that morning about 15 miles from the home he was living in. I called the police letting them know but it did not matter. In fact since he was seen near a Jr. College the city police did not have jurisdiction of the area so we had to contact the campus security, time is ticking.

We put together an archaic flyer with two pictures, name, date of birth and where he was last seen. I went to the area he was last seen, sat in parks, handed the flyer to vendors on the street, strangers walking by asking “have you seen this teen”. Going to the transit center, doubling back to where he left from in case he was going back. In the meantime his father was at home searching websites, calling authorities, emailing the picture to whoever was out there.

Still no word from my son as night number two was drawing near and it was thirty plus degrees outside my heart was sinking.

Saturday – Still No Word And This Is Getting Serious
Next morning, with little sleep and renewed hope that he would call or magically appear, robotically we started the search again. Even if I did not want to spend my day researching, driving, walking, looking there was no choice. That morning I took a walk to our downtown area, thinking he might be in town as I posted flyers at the local soup kitchen, and not wanting to paste the flyers for our neighbors to see. It is such a shameful feeling to have your teen run away. At the security booth in the transit center, I handed the guy a flyer requesting he post it, with tears telling him it is my son.  Little did I know at the time,  this contact would lead to our first meaningful clue. He told me about a homeless shelter in a town 30 minutes north of us. I had him write it down, but I thought why would he be in that town, it was definitely not on my radar.  This same day my husband decided that he would go out and look in the San Francisco Haight District, visit police stations and hand out more flyers. I stayed home made contacts and decided what the heck what do I have to lose I will call the homeless shelter from the security guard and see if I can email him a flyer. I did and he posted it. Another night with no word

Sunday-The First Real Good Tip Comes In
The next  morning we get a phone call from the homeless shelter in the town north of us, some of the homeless people at the shelter had talked to our son. We rushed to the town with a new more professional flyer that I found on the internet. We went to the homeless shelter and the director put together a very detailed map for us of all the places “the homeless kids” hang out and areas in town that he had been seen. Eight plus hours we spent combing this town talking to everyone … kids, adults, handing out the flyer. People had seen him, but always yesterday. No one had seen him the day we were there. Night four, for better or worse now the weather is getting un-seasonably warmer. Realizing he is on a journey.

Monday-Just Another Work Day Until  …
The next day I decided I needed to go to work, it was Monday, I had to get away from it all, if that is possible. His father decides to go back up north one last time to see if our son would surface. When he got into town many of the posters from the previous day had been torn down. He reposted the flyers, but came home empty handed. I got home from work that evening and the phone rang. Someone in the town had interacted with our son.  He met our son near Starbuck’s the morning that we had been in town, he bought him a hot chocolate and oatmeal. He talked to him, asked what he was doing and found out that he was planning to leave town and take the #80 bus and go to Berkley. He gave us a fantastic description, backpack with sleeping bag stuffed in it. He was wearing sweats, with untied shoes. Now we knew he was definitely on a homeless adventure.

The 80 bus goes to San Francisco, we knew he would either stay in SF or go on to Berkeley. My husband planned to go to San Francisco the next day and contacted a friend that lives in the city. He asked if we wanted him to go to the Haight and look for our homeless teen runaway. While our friend  went to the Haight, I got in my car and headed to Berkeley with flyers in hand. Approaching the Richmond Bridge, my husband calls that our friend had our son. Our friend found our son!! OMG! He got the police involved; they apprehended him, peeled him off the sidewalk and took him to the police station.

I don’t know what I thought my son would look like when we got to the police station, but it was scary. He was high, since this is the Haight District in  San Francisco, they told us to take him home, no questions asked and did not charge him with anything. I think they were just glad to have one less person on the street. He/we were  lucky any other town would have put him in a cell.  We found him on the fifth night and I think he would have been out for much longer, there was no indication that he was trying to get home. He was homeless and high.

Lesson I Learned

One thing to takeaway from this long rambling – the answers comes from where you least expect, don’t discount anything,  it was the lone security guard at the transit center that was the first suggestion that lead us to finding our runaway teen son on a homeless drug and alcohol induced binge.

Tagged as: at risk teens, AWOL, homelees teens, teen runaway