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When you’re young and have nowhere safe to stay
For any teen or young person in the United States who has run away, been kicked out, is thinking about leaving home, or has no safe place to sleep tonight, and for the adults who care about one. This page passes on, by name, what the National Runaway Safeline, the National Safe Place Network and federal youth agencies say about themselves: who answers at any hour, what they keep private, where you can walk in, how to get a free ride home, where you can stay longer, and how to stay in school. It builds the first words to say. It will not tell you to go home or to stay away. Take only what you need today.
Right now
- In danger right now? Call 911.
- Need someone to talk to, or a place to go? Call or text the National Runaway Safeline, at any hour: 1-800-786-2929 (1-800-RUNAWAY). To text: text the same number. It says it is free and confidential, and that you don’t have to give your name.
- Need the nearest safe building? Safe Place says to text the word SAFE and your city, state or ZIP to 44357. Or look for a yellow diamond-shaped Safe Place sign, walk in, and say “I need help.”
- Thinking about ending your life? Call or text 988, at any hour.
- Someone checks your phone? Calls, texts and this page can leave a trace. Use a friend’s phone or a library computer if you can.
More help
- A bed tonight, at any age: When you need a place to stay.
- Someone is hurting you: If a child is being hurt, After sexual assault and When home isn’t safe.
- Someone wants something in return for a place to stay: If someone is forcing you to work or to sell sex.
- You were in foster care: When you’re leaving foster care.
- Food, a doctor, an ID: When you need food, When you need a doctor and can’t pay and When your ID is gone.
- You hurt yourself to get through: When you hurt yourself to cope.
- A young person you love is gone: When someone is missing.
- A plan for the worst nights: Safety plan.
- All our free tools and Get help now.
This page and its wording were written with AI (Claude) for Scarlet Beast (our AI policy). No counselor, shelter worker, lawyer or young person who has been through this has reviewed it. The facts were read on October 7, 2026 on the websites of the National Runaway Safeline (1800runaway.org: its home, youth, get-help, Home Free, youth FAQ and concerned-adults pages), the National Safe Place Network (nationalsafeplace.org: its find-a-safe-place, TXT 4 HELP and what-is-Safe-Place pages), the Family and Youth Services Bureau of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (acf.gov: its Basic Center, Transitional Living, Maternity Group Homes and Street Outreach pages and its program fact sheet), youth.gov (its homelessness pages on education, federal programs and definitions) and USAGov (its emergency housing page). The page says whose words it is passing on, and what is marked “ours” is our own. What we could not open or did not read: the U.S. Department of Education’s and Federal Student Aid’s pages (they refused our connection), the federal map of funded youth shelters (its link was broken), any state’s law on leaving home, emancipation, shelters or reporting, and the Safeline’s resource database. We called and texted no number, and we do not know whether either line answers in Spanish. It saves nothing and loads no tracking.