Parker Eshelman photo

Samantha Summers, 18, visits the Rainbow House office of Heather Windham yesterday to share her experience with a task force studying teen homelessness in Columbia.

Samantha Summers said she first met her mother when she was 14.

The teen had been living with her maternal grandmother in southern Missouri until March 2003. That’s when Summers’ grandmother made an unexpected announcement.

"She said she was older and didn’t want to deal with a teenager again," said Summers, now 18.

A short time later, the teen said, her grandmother drove her to Columbia and dropped her off at her mother’s house. She never saw her grandmother again. Today, Summers is homeless and dependent on the kindness of friends to find a place to sleep each night.

Thanks to the help of folks at Rainbow House, a facility for abused and neglected children, Summers graduated from Hickman High School this spring and is looking for a job. She has held jobs in the past, opened a bank account and sees a therapist when she can catch a ride to her appointments.

But because the teenager doesn’t own a vehicle and lives two miles from a bus stop, Summers said getting back on her feet is tough.

"I want to get a job and go to cosmetology school," she said. "Some day, I’d like to go to law school."

Big dreams for a young woman facing big obstacles.

But members of a task force looking at the needs of homeless teenagers in Columbia think young people such as Summers deserve a chance to make their dreams come true.

Since March, representatives of more than a dozen organizations have been meeting at Rainbow House, 1611 Town Drive, to map out a plan to empower homeless teenagers and teach them the skills they need to take care of themselves.

Summers met with some of the task force members yesterday to share her experience of having no permanent housing. In October, Summers said, the Missouri Department of Family Services took her out of her mother’s home after she repeatedly reported to a school counselor that her mother’s boyfriend had been physically abusing her.

"He was always drinking," Summers said of her mother’s live-in boyfriend. "I’d try to avoid him, but when his accusations became unreasonable, I would yell back. That’s what made him mad, and then he would hit me."

Summers said DFS sent her back into the home several times. But in October she refused to return. Summers was eventually placed at Rainbow House. That was her saving grace.

"Rainbow House helped me grow up," Summers said. "I got emotional support. I got a job. I got a bank account. I stayed in school."

Summers stayed at Rainbow House for four months, longer than most teenagers, said Heather Windham, the shelter’s clinical coordinator and the leading force behind the homeless youth task force.

The problem is Summers has had no place of her own to go since leaving Rainbow House in January and few services she can access.

Windham and the Rainbow House staff would like to create a facility that would provide transitional housing for homeless teens such as Summers and give them access to counseling, education and life-skills training. The group agreed to meet again at 5 p.m. July 17.

Summers told the group she wants to find employment, but often the only jobs she can find have Sunday hours, and the bus doesn’t run on Sundays.

"If I don’t show up to work, I get fired," she said.

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