Like many students at Sequoia, Rose prefers English over math. She grew up watching Disney movies and she loves her pet turtle.

Unlike most of her peers, however, she is homeless.

“It’s funny because some people think, ’20 bucks to go to the movies, that’s nothing.’ I get five bucks and I’m like, ‘oh my God, yes, I can go to the store and get myself a full meal,’” Rose said.

Rose’s mom lives in motels and re-sells things she collects from garage sales at farmers’ markets, while her dad is a plumber who works without a license. Rose is currently living with her sister, her dad and his girlfriend’s family of five. Fights over everything from smoking inside to substance abuse occur frequently, however, and Rose often stays with friends or moves between her parents’ places.

For many people, the word “homeless” bring to mind panhandlers and addicts living on the streets. Rose considers herself homeless because she is at her house around two nights a week; the other five she is forced to move around because she gets kicked out of where she is currently living. Some nights she walks around for hours with nowhere to go.

“After school today I’m going to go home and I’ll have a home for now, but if my dad’s drinking, or me and my sister get in a fight, then yes, I’ll be homeless,” Rose said.

According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, 222,197 families are homeless on any given night in the US. About 40 percent of the homeless population is under the age of 18.

Rose faces difficulties with daily needs: she has nowhere to do laundry, and she has to resort to the frozen aisle because healthy food is too expensive. Finding clothes is one of her biggest challenges.

“It’s kind of funny because I’ll usually come to school and I’m wearing sweats and a jacket, and people are [sarcastically] like ‘oh, you tried today,’” Rose said. “Honestly, it’s not that, it’s that every pair of jeans I own is ripped, and I have no tops so I wear jackets every day, and all my sweats are my boyfriend’s sweats, so I kind of have to dress like that.”

Many of Rose’s problems stem from her family. Her mom has battled with drug addictions, and her dad is alcoholic. Her parents often put their own wants before Rose’s needs, and she is eager to get a job as soon as she turns sixteen to have an income of her own.

“[My dad] will do anything to buy that pack of beer, but when it comes to me needing clothes, or me needing a new toothbrush, or me needing shampoo and conditioner, he just doesn’t do it. He won’t try his hardest, even if he tries his hardest for everything else. It’s the same thing with my mom,” Rose said.

When Rose was in seventh grade her mom was put in prison, then a program called Hope House, for drug-related offenses, and Rose went to live with her aunt. She felt abandoned by her family, so she turned to self-harm as a release.

“I used to write a lot in my diary, and honestly I wrote everything that was on my mind, everything that was truly going on. I wrote exactly how I was feeling. I wrote suicide letters, I wrote letters to my mom while she was in the program, I wrote letters to my dad asking him why he just left. I wrote every single time that I cut myself,” Rose said.

Her aunt found the diary and Rose was hospitalized and sent to therapy. She eventually moved out and went to live with her dad.  

“That’s when I started realizing, OK, I’m just going to concentrate on school and friends. I’m not gonna focus on family, as bad as that sounds, I just didn’t think that was the best thing for me. That’s when I kinda cleaned up my self harming phase and I just moved on,” Rose said. “My mom didn’t show up to the court date [to settle custody] even though she had the chance. My parents just kind of let me go so it took me a long time to just realize ‘OK, you’re by yourself but that doesn’t mean you’re fully alone.’”

Rose now turns to books, walks, music and hot showers when she needs a break.

“One challenge [for youth] is the stigma behind homelessness. Feeling like you’re not as good as your peers because you don’t have the kind of things that others have. I know people get teased because of it,” said Laura Sunseri, Children’s Services Coordinator for InnVision Shelter Network’s Redwood Family House. “People in our community don’t understand homelessness and [that] it can happen to a variety of people for a lot of reasons.”

Last year Rose used a counselor at the Teen Resource Center for help with schoolwork and to talk things over when her situation at home got rough. Aside from that, however, Rose rarely shares her problems with her teachers or friends.

“In some kind of way I feel like the only reason people think I don’t have problems is because I look like a typical white girl,” Rose said. “On the other hand, I’m kind of glad not a lot of people know, just because I don’t want it to define me.”

Rose knows that if she really needs help, she can always turn to her grandmother, but she usually fends for herself.

“I feel really weird asking [my grandma] for money. She always tells me ‘hey, you know you can ask for money,’ but I can’t help but think about after she buys me clothes and has to tell the whole family that ‘oh, I had to buy Rose clothes today because her parents are too poor.’ I hate that feeling,” Rose said.

Looking to the future, Rose plans to go to a community college then transfer to a four year university. She is interested in business, or perhaps psychology.

“For now, I just want to keep doing what I’m doing. Trust me, it is hard at home, but I have a place to do homework, I have a place to make myself food, I have really good friends, so I want to just keep going with that,” Rose said. “It’s so hard when you have two things that are positive and you have 50,000 things that are negative and you’re just like, ‘oh gosh, ok, let’s think about those two things even though all these other things are crashing through my mind.’ I just try to use the little things to keep myself up and going.”

Rose sees coping with homelessness as an experience that will help her in the future, even if it makes her life in high school fraught with difficulties.

“I’m actually really proud of myself. I’m proud that I haven’t turned out to be a high school dropout, [that] I’ve learned to take care of myself at a young age,” Rose said. “I’m really proud that I got to have this kind of experience because I know it will help me in the long run, even though it’s still hard. I know once I’m older and I have my own life I’m going to be good.”

The name Rose is a pseudonym granted to the interviewee, a Sequoia High School student.