Programs that provide shelter and a safe place to sleep as well as access to food, medical care and other types of assistance for children and/or youth who have run away from or been pushed out of their homes, or who are acting out and at risk for abuse pending return to their own families or a suitable alternative placement. The most common causes for youth becoming homeless, in addition to being kicked out of their homes or running away, are being abandoned or neglected, experiencing financial hardship, aging out of foster care, conflicts related to their sexual orientation, having a substance use disorder or experiencing the death of a family member or guardian. Such facilities usually provide in-house individual, group and family counseling and the full range of other secondary services related to runaways and other homeless youth including referral to appropriate resources. Homeless youth are different than homeless adults because they often have not learned the essential life skills needed to live on their own such as how to drive or ride a bus, get a job or pay bills. Homeless youth are also more likely than other youth their age to experience mental illness, suffer poor health, drop out of school, and become involved with or victims of criminal activity, including being exploited, abused or even killed.

Individuals who are generally between the ages of 18 and 25 depending on the ages that specific programs use for qualification.

Individuals younger than age 18 who have been persuaded or coerced to perform sexual acts in a film or photograph or who have been introduced to juvenile prostitution and forced or persuaded to perform sexual acts in exchange for money.

Individuals (including adults and children, males and females) who have been abducted, sold, recruited under fraud or pretence or otherwise brought under the control of another person, and forced, by means of threats, intimidation, violence or other forms of coercion, into unpaid or underpaid labor, servitude, prostitution or forced marriage, either domestically within their own country or internationally. Other forms of exploitation include provision of children for illegal adoption, provision of women as mail-order brides, and subjection of individuals of all ages to the forced removal of organs.