Agency Expands to Valley : Street--Wise ‘Angels’ Seek Out Runaways

Every Thursday and Friday, Peter and Brooke Romano cruise the San Fernando Valley in a beige van they call a mobile crisis intervention office, looking for runaway teen-agers.

The young married couple from Burbank sometimes confer with teen-agers at a table inside the van or distribute cold drinks and food vouchers, good for meals at their center. But mostly, the Romanos said, they just want to make sure that youngsters see the van, which has information about Angel’s Flight, a haven for runaway youths, printed in large letters on its side.

‘Here to Help’

“Our main focus right now is visibility for the van,” Brooke Romano said. “We want kids to know we’re here to help. We’re trying to establish a regular route.”

The Romanos work as counselors for Angel’s Flight, an agency operated by the Roman Catholic Welfare Bureau with centers on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles, Hollywood and the Valley.

The director of Angel’s Flight, Brother Phil Mandile of the Salesians of Don Bosco, said St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in North Hollywood offered space in its parish center for the Valley facility a month ago.

“People in the parish said there was a need here,” Mandile said.

He said he hired the Romanos to do outreach work for the agency because of their qualifications and youthful appearance. Peter Romano, 26, and his wife, Brooke, 22, have previously worked for social service agencies, Mandile said.

Variety of Runaways

The Romanos, who also take the van twice a week to beach areas that are likely to attract runaways, began cruising the Valley regularly just after they were hired. They have found a variety of runaways, they said, ranging from two 12-year-olds who thought they could walk to Texas to hard-core street kids already familiar with agencies where they could get a handout.

“All of them are scared,” Peter Romano said. “Almost every one of these kids has had some kind of physical or sexual abuse at home. You can really see the fear and dejection in their faces. There’s this faraway look in their eyes.”

“Most have everything that they own with them,” Brooke Romano said. “They usually have some kind of pack with them. They’re not hard to spot. They usually don’t have any money and they don’t think very far ahead.”

She said the couple met two teen-agers from New York who said they had $2,000 when they got off a bus in Los Angeles.

“Two weeks later they were broke,” Brooke Romano said. “They said they’d spent all their money on clothes.”

About half of the teen-agers they see have not run away from home, but rather have been told to leave by one or both parents, Peter Romano said. Many are from broken homes.

“Here’s a typical profile,” he said. “Jane Doe is 14 and lives at home with her divorced mother. Mom gets a boyfriend, who moves in and, eventually, starts having sexual relations with Jane. Mom finds out, gets jealous and kicks out, not the boyfriend, but Jane.

“Sometimes, the mother remarries and the stepfather doesn’t want a teen-ager that’s not his child around.”

On a routine Thursday or Friday, the Romanos begin their search for runaways about 9 a.m., driving along the strip of Ventura Boulevard in Studio City that is lined with cheap motels. Then, they stop at the Sherman Oaks Galleria, park the van where it is easily seen, get out and distribute flyers about Angel’s Flight in restrooms, arcades, fast-food restaurants and other areas where teen-agers are likely to congregate. They then drive up Van Nuys Boulevard to the Panorama Mall, where they again park.

“We want to talk to the management of the malls,” Peter Romano said. “We want to get to know them well enough so they’ll let us put our flyers in their windows.”

Informative Shirts

The Romanos also wear tan knit shirts and jackets with information about Angel’s Flight printed on them.

Last Thursday morning, the Romanos parked on Sepulveda Boulevard and started walking toward the Sherman Oaks Galleria when they spotted the day’s first runaways.

Two boys and a girl, each wearing dirty jeans, punk haircuts and several earrings, sat in the shade outside the mall on a cement railing. The Romanos approached the youths cautiously.

“Kids on the street don’t know who their friends are,” Peter Romano said. “They distrust everybody.”

“Yeah,” his wife agreed. “They don’t know we’re not a special branch of the Police Department looking for runaways.”

The youths, however, appeared to welcome the couple.

On Streets 3 Weeks

One had a pierced earring in his nose, which was becoming infected. Someone had pulled on the earring and torn the skin. He said that his name is Robert, but everybody calls him Yogi, and that he is 15.

“I’ve been out on the streets for three weeks,” he said. “My mom kicked me out. She started slapping me around. I was in Juvenile Hall because I hadn’t paid some traffic tickets. She paid them for me. They were going to put me in a foster home but she got me out. Then, she kicked me out.

“She said I could move back home if I would get rid of this haircut. Why don’t parents just let us alone? They got to let us grow up. They can’t run our lives for us.”

Yogi said that he hopes to go back to school in the fall but that he doesn’t learn much there.

“They just try to keep us off the streets,” he said.

He also said he has been sleeping in churches and on roofs of apartment buildings in Sherman Oaks and North Hollywood. Sometimes, he said, he goes to Hollywood in search of food and shelter.

A companion said that her name is Nicki, and that she is 16 and grew up in the Valley.

Panhandles for Money

She said she has repeatedly run away from home because “I don’t know what I want. I’ve been away about three weeks this time. I’m going to call my parents and let them know I’m all right.”

To get money, Nicki said, she panhandles in Hollywood, where she met 17-year-old Flux, who had returned to the Valley with her.

Flux said he has been away from home for three years, off and on. He said he earns what money he needs by working as a movie extra or charging tourists in Hollywood a dollar to allow them to take his picture.

“I’ve made as much as $50 in one day,” he said. “Those people from the Midwest have never seen anybody like me before.”

Parents Divorced

His parents are divorced, he said, and his mother has remarried.

“My stepfather doesn’t want me around,” he said. “I don’t like living with my father. He doesn’t pay any attention to me. We never talk. I’d like to go home.”

He said that, when his parents were first divorced, he tried unsuccessfully to get them back together.

“Sometimes, I write them a letter just to let them know I’m alive,” he said.

Flux and Nicki said they had been to the Angel’s Flight center in Hollywood.

“We got a sandwich there last week and took it to the 7-Eleven store and warmed it in their microwave,” Nicki said. “I’m glad there’s a center here now. It’s really needed.”

The three said they were waiting for Yogi’s girlfriend to pick them up and take them to Panorama City.

“Well, at least, they know we’re around, that we want to help and that we won’t call their parents if they don’t want us to,” Brooke Romano said.

Emphasis on Basic Needs

Mandile, who was along for the ride on this particular day, said the agency does not push religion on youths but instead emphasizes the basics: food, shelter and jobs. The center has no sleeping accommodations, but will provide meals, a shower and a change of clothes. The center can find temporary shelter in a hotel if the runaway wants to go home.

The ultimate goal is to reunite youths with their parents. “We feel we’ve really made a difference in a teen-ager’s life if we can accomplish that,” Mandile said. “We’re really happy to buy that bus ticket home.”

He said Angel’s Flight was started in October, 1982, by Cardinal Timothy Manning, who used to see many runaway teen-agers during his daily morning walks around the Skid Row area near his office. The archdiocese provided $100,000 in seed money for the agency to open its main center in Los Angeles, Mandile said.

“About a year later, we decided the Hollywood area needed some attention,” he said. “So, we started operating the van program in August, 1984. Last October, we opened a Hollywood center. Nine months later, we’ve opened one in the Valley.”

Paid Staff of 10

The agency has a paid staff of about 10 and more than 100 volunteers, Mandile said, adding that the North Hollywood center will be staffed mainly by volunteers from St. Patrick’s church.

He said that, of the 1,132 runaway cases handled by the agency last year, about 50% were from out of state, 25% were from California cities outside Los Angeles County and 25% were from Los Angeles County. Of these, 590 were new cases and 380 were repeats. The remainder were runaways who contacted the agency by phone.

The Romanos said they eventually hope to expand their operation to West Valley communities.

“Teen-age runaways are everywhere,” Brooke Romano said. “And all need help of some sort.”