Resolution 080391

..Title Recognizing, Honoring, And Celebrating the Turn Purple Campaign - For their mission of working to prevent youth homelessness by raising awareness, uniting youth organizations, increasing advocacy, and heightening prevention efforts. ..Body WHEREAS, The Turn Purple Campaign is the nations' first campaign against child abuse and the resulting problem of youth homelessness; and WHEREAS, In America there is a common misconception that children runaway from home because they are societal delinquents who want to be free of authority; and WHEREAS, The media depicts homeless and street kids as "rebels without a cause", as children who have no regard for society, who have no dreams and no aspiration for life but to get high; and WHEREAS, In fact we know that 90% of children who run away have encountered mental, physical, emotional, and/ or sexual abuse; and WHEREAS, No child wants to live on the streets or to beg, steal, sell drugs, and/ or themselves just to survive; and WHEREAS, A case of child abuse is reported every 10 seconds, one child runs away every minute of everyday, and 13 children die on the streets every day from assaults, illness or suicide - totaling over 5,000 runaway deaths each year; and WHEREAS, 42% of the runaways become involved in prostitution within 48 hours of leaving home to survive, 62% of youth on the streets attempt suicide at least once, and 36% of the runaways have been on the streets more than three years; and WHEREAS, Only a small percentage of homeless children and street youth will ever enroll in a shelter or social service agency for help because of fear of identification, legal entanglement, victimization, or being taken advantage of by self-serving organizations; and WHEREAS, National awareness is being raised by literally turning the face of the nation purple in April 2008 to bring attention to the cause of children living on the streets - child abuse; and WHEREAS, A coalition of youth oriented organizations is being built to stand vigilant in recognizing the signs of children in distress and provide them with resources; now therefore RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, That City Council Hereby Recognize, Honor, And Celebrate the Turn Purple Campaign - For their mission of working to prevent youth homelessness by raising awareness, uniting youth organizations, increasing advocacy, and heightening prevention efforts. ..End