Yeah, I wanna run.

[Spidey]

I meant to post this as a thread, not a thread reply. Sincere apologies.

No bull******** here. I'm fifteen, i'm depressed, and my home life is absolute ********.
I want to leave this house. I have questions, though.

1. Will I be able to attend school? If I manage to make it across the Canadian border will they know I've been filed? Could I attend there?
2. How much money should I bring?
3. What is the legal size of knife you can carry? So I can protect my backpack on the street.
4. How old do I have to be to get an apartment?
5. Is it wiser to go before or after I can get a drivers license?
6. Is it possible to sneak across the Canadian border without a passport?
7. Will the U.S.A military still accept me if I've been a runaway? (Runaways are not illegal in my state.)
8. If I can get into a school, how easy or hard will it be to get on a free lunch program without an adult?
10. Is it wise to bring light amounts of food to conserve money?

I may have more questions, but for now, thanks.

[ccsmod5]

re: Yeah, I wanna run.

Hey there,

Thank you for reaching out to the National Runaway Safeline and allowing us to aid you through this incredibly tough time. We can’t even imagine what you’re experiencing and we hope that we can help the best we can.

We understand that you have a solid idea of what next steps you’d like to take in your life and have been thinking concretely about how to go about them. Before we answer your questions, we would like you to know that we are not legal experts and cannot speak confidently for most of your questions. We will try to answer them the best we can as a whole.

To start with some of your questions, landowners cannot have those under the age of 18 sign a lease independently for themselves. In regards to running away, we can speak in general terms of what that implicates legally. If you leave home without consent, your parents or guardians have the right to make a runaway report. This is a status offense and means that you simply must be returned home upon being found. If you are found with the people you have been staying with and they are considered adults, they could be charged with harboring a runaway. The consequences for this vary and depend on the nature of the case and how and if your parents press charges. Running away is not considered a major offense, and if you decide to partake in certain things past the age of 18 (enrolling for government-affiliated positons or the army) this should not be an impeding factor.

We understand that you’d like us to speak firmly on how much and what exactly you should bring with you while you’re on the run. We cannot say for sure or advise specifically on these things. This is often a tough decision call and may be helpful to consider a couple of worst-case scenarios for the same of the places you may be residing in and plan and pack accordingly. This includes considering how you will replenish your resources, how you can stay in communication to a network of people you could turn to, how you will travel, etc.

In regards to ease of programs and their accessibility as well as sneaking through things, we cannot say for sure how that may go. Many programs differ as well as situations and success with certain things depend on different factors. If you’d like information on specific programs, you can always contact those working with them directly to understand more.

If you’d also like more information on certain laws and general enrollment in Canada, it may be useful to locate a specific area and access either an organization or police department with some specific questions.

We’re incredibly sorry that you’re dealing with so much at once. If you’d like to talk more or gain some referrals to either legal aid or other agencies and shelters, please don’t hesitate to give us a call at 1(800)RUNAWAY (786-2929).

We hope you take care,

NRS