Legislature: Helping runaways

A bill that would allow runaways and other homeless kids to spend the night in a shelter was approved unanimously by the Senate Judiciary, Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Committee Tuesday morning.

HB22, sponsored by Rep. Lorie Fowlke, R-Orem, was approved unanimously in the House last week and will now go to the full Senate for consideration.

Under current state law, shelters are required to put minors out on the street after 7 p.m. — even if they have nowhere to go. The current law was put into place in a time when it was not unreasonable to expect that runaways should be sent home, but that now it is often dangerous for them to be there.

"Now we have these situations where kids simply have nowhere to go," she said. "Even if there's a blizzard outside, the law requires that the shelters put these kids out. That's not only unpleasant, it's actually very dangerous."

— David Servatius