The majority of these youth have run away from a temporary crisis and are able to return home and work out their problems after a cooling-off period in the home of a friend or relative or in a youth shelter. Many, however, are escaping from personal danger in the form of a substance-abusing or abusive parent. Others have been abandoned or kicked out and told not to return. Runaway and homeless youth tend to gravitate to urban areas, and they typically have a history of school failure and personal and family trauma. No branch of California's government is mandated to provide services for this at-risk population. Because they are runaways, they are viewed as inappropriate for child protective services and are also outside the mental health system. Most homeless programs serve either adults or families with children, while juvenile probation concentrates on law violators. Some programs are available for runaway and homeless youth. For example, the California Runaway Hotline provides 24-hour toll-free assistance to youth in crisis. Runaway shelters offer short-term housing and crisis counseling for youth who have a good chance of returning home. Federal funding totaling about $2.8 million a year supports 37 such shelters in California. State-funded homeless youth programs in Los Angeles and San Francisco offer a model of coordinated services for homeless adolescents for a 60-day period. California should develop a coordinated system of care for runaway and homeless youth that minimally includes a youth and family crisis center in each of the State's 58 counties and a transitional living component for homeless street youth between 16 and 21 years of age. A coordinated system is estimated to cost about $46 million a year. 14 references