Caring people help teenager who was abandoned, homeless

A hair salon became a
haven for a homeless teen.

By JEANNE STARMACK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

AUSTINTOWN — He had no birth certificate, no Social Security number and no permanent address.

When police finally caught up with him, he didn’t have much with him but the clothes he was wearing — shorts and a hoodie.

The 17-year-old boy was lucky, though, to have at least one thing: people who cared about him.

When he showed up at a hair salon on Mahoning Avenue in August asking for work, he told owner Michelle Dinsio and her employees that he was 21.

“They tried to give him jobs here and there,” said Kim DiPillo, a counselor at Meridian Services on Meridian Road and a client at The Salon Team.

The salon is also a client of DiPillo’s — counseling for its employees is a benefit they use at Meridian Services.

So when they found out several weeks ago that the boy was not really 21, it was DiPillo they eventually turned to for advice.

“They’ve been driving him around, helping him, praying everything would work out for him,” said DiPillo.

They bought the boy some clothes and “made sure he had stuff to eat.” But he was trying to fend for himself, too, by shoplifting food, she said.

They found out he’d been caught in Austintown. “There was a warrant. We called [Detective Raynor] Holmes,” DiPillo said.

Salon manager Lisa Myers found the boy at the Speedway fuel mart and brought him to the salon Tuesday afternoon, where he would be more comfortable, they thought, meeting with police.

After police took the boy, Holmes contacted the Children Services Board, which now has custody of him. CSB found him housing in a center in Youngstown for juveniles, mostly runaways, Holmes said Wednesday.

He’s there at least until next month, when he turns 18, Holmes said.

After that, he’ll have to leave. And it doesn’t appear that he’ll be able to go back the way he came.

He arrived in Austintown in July to live with a half sister, DiPillo said. His father, who lives in Florida, was moving in with a friend who didn’t want the boy to move in, too. His mother had left the family, and the boy doesn’t know where she is.

His father put him on a bus with $20 and no identification, DiPillo said. He lived with his half sister for awhile, but she moved to Massachusetts to live with her own father. He does have two half brothers in Austintown, but doesn’t think either can take him in permanently though he has stayed with them off and on, she said.

He stayed with them and with anyone else who would take him in since his sister left, she said.

He does know where his father is, DiPillo said — she and others at the salon have made many calls to Florida, with none returned.

CSB has also been trying, Holmes said, to get the boy’s birth certificate and Social Security card. He said he hopes CSB can advise the boy on what to do when he has to leave the center as an adult. His birthday is Dec. 14.

Kids who turn 18 in the system often aren’t prepared for what they’ll do next, he said. “Kids fall into that hole and usually keep falling.”

CSB officials said Wednesday they could not talk about the boy’s case because of confidentiality requirements. CSB director Denise Stewart said the agency usually tries to help kids who “age out of the system” with finding housing and employment, she said.

She said finding a foster home for the boy “would be an ideal situation. But it’s difficult to find foster homes to take teenagers.” Stewart said the boy can get a medical card in January because of expansion in the Medicaid program.

DiPillo said the boy called Dinsio from the center Wednesday to thank everyone at the salon because he now has food and a place to live.

It was always easy to see, said Myers, that the boy wanted to make a better life for himself. “He’s a wonderful kid.”