Crossing state lines

While some young people leave due to conflict or instability at home, others flee abuse, neglect, or discrimination. Estimates suggest between 1.6 and 2,8 million young people run away each year with family conflict, abuse, and neglect being the leading causes. The truth is, what society often dismisses as “running away” is more often an act of resistance and a young person’s attempt to find safety when no one else has provided it.

Crossing State Lines, Crossing a Threshold

The moment a young person steps onto a bus, train, or highway alone, they enter a world few adults could navigate, let alone a teenager. For many, relocation is both freedom and fear, a mix of possibility and peril. Without identification, financial resources, or adult support, their survival often depends on strangers and fragile networks of trust.

One Youth tells the story of chronic homelessness moving from shelter two shelter until finding a program that could help. The Safe horizons Streetwork project, designed specifically for young people like Mark was thankfully able to step in and make incredible impact. Thanks to their support Mark was able to become a mentor to other youth suffering similar circumstances even while being homeless himself. Hear more of his story here

Many minors who relocate across state lines face legal barriers when trying to access housing, education, or healthcare. Without parental consent, they often can’t sign leases, enroll in school, or access basic medical services. This leaves them vulnerable to exploitation, unstable living conditions, and further trauma. At least 10% of these minors lack identification which becomes a barrier to getting vital supports and services.

Communities That Catch Them

Despite the hardships, countless community organizations quietly step in to help. Shelters, outreach programs, and local advocates serve as lifelines for displaced youth, offering not only food and housing but mentorship and a sense of belonging. These unsung heroes form the invisible safety net beneath a system that often looks the other way.

The National Safe Place Network, StandUp for Kids, or other state-based youth outreach initiatives do what they can to fill the void. Faith-based communities, too, have played crucial roles in providing safe havens and transitional housing. In cities across America, networks of volunteers open their homes or create drop-in centers that offer warmth, Wi-Fi, and a listening ear. Small acts of compassion: a meal, a bus ticket, a job lead, can change the trajectory of a young person’s life.

Resilience in Motion

To leave home at 15, 16, or 17 is not simply to relocate it’s to reinvent yourself in real time. Each new place brings lessons in resourcefulness, adaptability, and emotional endurance. But it also comes at a cost: the loss of stability, identity, and the normal milestones of adolescence. The postmigration phase is characterized by acculturation processes. This is the process of cultural, social, and psychological changes within groups and individuals that take place as a consequence of contact between two or more cultural groups and their individual members. Certain experiences, such as discrimination, lack of social support, and low Socio-economic status increase the risk of acculturation trauma. As a result of fragmented migrations, this process may be experienced several times and in different cultural settings

And yet, for many of these young people, resilience becomes their defining trait. They learn to find family in friendships, to create safety in motion, and to rebuild trust one act of kindness at a time. Their journeys reveal not weakness, but the incredible capacity of the human spirit to survive even in the absence of a safety net.

When Home Must Be Built, Not Found

The question society must ask isn’t simply why young people leave home, but what they’re leaving behind, and what we’re failing to provide. When minors move across state lines in search of security, that’s not just a personal crisis it’s a reflection of systemic failure. If we want to stop these journeys from beginning in the first place, we need to strengthen the roots of community: accessible mental health care, trauma-informed schools, supportive housing, and early intervention programs that catch family fractures before they become exits. Home isn’t always a place. It’s the people who make survival possible. When home is something you have to create for yourself, it takes courage beyond measure. And when a society recognizes that courage and responds with care, that’s when true belonging begins.