USA. Redlands, California. January 20, 2015.
Kyle, 19, photographed at Youth Hope. Kyle's mom was in the medical field, dad was an environmental studies professor.
At 6 years old, mom began going crazy, he didn’t started noticing until he was 12 years old.
Mom was schizophrenic and was using prescription drugs.
Kyle started drinking and smoking weed.
Mom began to be paranoid and started getting cameras to control all movement in the home.
He began to run away and spent the night at school or in Jacuzzis, usually only for a night or two.
Dad was in and out of the picture. He tried to get Kyle’s custody.
One day, a month after school started, a couple of Samoan guys took him to Utah to a rehab center that acted as an academy for heroin and other drug addicts. He was there for 53 days.
He got froze byte and couldn’t use his fingers and toes for a while. The temperature he’ll sleep in was sometimes -23 degrees.
After his mom tried to commit suicide, his dad took over.
His dad began to drink. Kyle’s mom had taken all his money.
Dad sent Kyle to a charter school, but then got him kicked out by saying that he was selling heroin. Kyle was only selling weed.
Kyle went to spend the summer in San Francisco with his brother and then went to Washington to live with his mom.
At 17 years old, he ran away from his mom and went to with his friend, Jack, in Georgia. He stayed at a Mormon home where he lived for 8 months. He was respectful of the rules the Mormon family would place on him; he’ll go to their church and stopped smoking pot.
He moved with his friend Nick Padilla back to Redlands. They used to get drunk together back before he moved away. He lived with him for 6 months. During that time he broke his ankle.
He then became homeless. During this time he stayed on friends’ couches. He was homeless for 6 months.
“I was lonely and feel worthless”
He then met Heidi.
Being homeless was bad but he knew where he wanted to be, and Heidi was the one to help h