ON THE STREET: IT’S NO GAME

first peRson Each year, more than 6,000 runaway teenagers wander Dallas streets. For a while, I was “Sally,” a 15-year-old incest victim and runaway in the game of H.E.A.R.T.S., a Salvation Army-sponsored reenactment of a day in the life of the homeless. As Sally, I had 30 minutes to solve my problems in the maze of service agency booths set up within the H.E.A.R.T.S. community, in this case the Salvation Army’s gym. The point of the exercise was to demonstrate how frustrating getting help can be and to provide a better understanding of life on the streets.

Sally’s incestuous relationship had involved an uncle. I thought that if I could find the right agency, they could better explain the situation to her parents. And of course, I wanted to gel Sally off the streets and home again; most likely, the same agency could handle that as well.

I’d been warned that a wrong choice could leave me floundering in the system, so I headed for the Department of Human Services, drawn by its broad umbrella title. But DHS referred me to the Private Industry Council, who sent me to the Dallas Labor Pool who told me to report to the Homeless Shelter. From there I went to the Salvation Army, back to the Texas Department of Human Services’ Child Protective Agency, then to its Income Assistance Agency, and last to the Dallas Housing Authority. The biggest problem in trying to solve Sally’s problem, they all seemed to say, was her age: because she is a juvenile, custody of her case fell into too many hands. Some of the agencies I hit on could help her by putting her up for the night or by placing a call, but none had the money to buy her a bus ticket back home.

At the end of my allotted time. Sally was still on the street. Her day had ended just as it had begun.