Dear America: Young Americans Who Suffer Are Finding Their Villages Disappearing

Dear America: I am grateful to be an American. But I am very concerned about some recent events affecting our homeless children. Social programs being defunded has people who are already invisible and disconnected falling deeper into repression.

By Justin Reed Early, Contributor

Author, 'Street Child: A Memoir'; blogger, speaker, commentator and advocate

Apr 5, 2013, 01:04 PM EDT|Updated Feb 2, 2016

Dear America:

I know it's been a while since we have spoken, but I'm getting older and wanted to send you a little note to thank you for all you have done for me. We used to talk everyday in grade school while pledging our love and loyalty for each other. I really miss that...

I pledge allegiance to the flag, of the United States of America...

You may not know how important your role was in my growing up, but you were like my real parents because when I was 10 years old my father suspected that I was gay and kicked me out of our middle-class home. I had nowhere to go but because of you and people that care, there were a few families and programs that looked after little kids like me. But when the pain of being rejected and the trauma of being discarded became intolerable I began acting out, doing drugs and even tried to kill myself. I still regret much of my behavior, but I learned some valuable insights and became a survivor. I lived a tough life, homeless on the streets for more than half of my young life. I still have nightmares about watching my 18-year-old friend take a bullet in his head during a street fight and when another friend got stabbed in the heart while protecting her girlfriend from three bigoted bullies screaming homophobic epithets -- murdered because she was a lesbian. Then my 16-year-old friend hung himself because his mom died, his dad went to prison and he could no longer tolerate living on the streets. Most notably, my "street sister," who at 12 years old learned to survive by prostituting herself, disappeared. Her body was found four years later and was eventually identified as a victim of the Green River Serial killer. My juvenile court judge molested me and several other boys and then got promoted to the Superior court, until a newspaper reporter exposed his crimes. The judge committed suicide and never hurt anyone else after that. Thankfully, you put a well-intended system together to help people by funding non-profit programs and emergency services, and if it weren't for these services on the coldest nights and desperate of times -- I would not have survived my own story.