Stopping the cycle of foster care runaways
She sat hunched like a shivering puppy, by a sign with arrows pointed in opposite directions and the warning: “My way. The highway.” Oversized glasses slipped down the bridge of her nose, stopped by a small stud piercing. Her dark hair was pulled back in a loose bun, her expression rueful.
The round-faced 17-year-old waited alone in a corner, steeling herself for a scolding from an adult.
Angel had recently run away from an emergency shelter at a Child Protective Services office in Houston, where she had been placed because the state had nowhere else to put her.
She didn’t want to be there, bunking in a room with old board games and mismatched blankets, a security guard in the lobby, and slogans like “Believe” and “Dream” stenciled on the walls – exhortations that seem like taunts.
So she took off, like dozens of foster kids who would rather risk the dangers of the street than stay in state custody.
As the teenager nibbled on a Pop-Tart, Shitonda Johnson hustled down the hallway on the second floor of the CPS building. She hovered over Angel, her voice suddenly softening from the crisp just-business-ma’am diction honed by her years in law enforcement.
“How are you? Is that your lunch?” Johnson asked in a maternal tone. “Come on, sweetie.”
She led Angel to a conference room.
Johnson’s assignment: Find out why Angel had taken off, what happened while she was missing, and, if she could, persuade her not to run again.
As a special investigator with the Department of Family and Protective Services, she had seen what happens to runaway foster kids. Pimps eager to lure them into prostitution. Men who offer help but deliver sexual assault. A swift descent into homelessness and hunger.
Johnson braced herself for Angel’s story.