Carl DeLine

Seventeen-year-old Donna Gibson considered becoming a prostitute to provide money for an education the government refuses to finance.

“I see a major block in the system,” says Gibson, who for six months has been seeking ways to upgrade her Grade 8 education. “There is no room in the system for me to go to school.”

Gibson said she was so desperate last year, she started to walk the streets. “I left my apartment and started walking downtown. I had on the entire get-up–black makeup and all.”

But after a prospective customer indicated interest in her, the frightened teen abandoned the street, and the idea of selling her body.

“It’s scary when you consider something like that, especially someone like me with moral values,” said Gibson. “But it’s easy money.”

Government money isn’t so easy to get for independent teens under 18 who want an education and possibly a career. Calgary Inter-Faith Food Bank director Carl DeLine says hundreds of independent youths fall through the system’s cracks.

“We are talking about a formal system that doesn’t cover these people,” DeLine said.

Many teens, turned out on their own, turn to prostitution and drug use to get by, he says. “It’s survival.”

Gibson, who has waitressing and cooking experience, wants to make more out of her life.

“I want to have a career and I know I can do it if I’m given the chance,” she said. “When people look at my application and see I’m 17, they see a person who knows diddly squat.”

Everywhere Gibson has gone to solve her problem, she has hit a brick wall because of age restrictions and her limited education.

Gibson, who has lived mostly on her own for two years because she said her parents don’t want her, quit her $5.50-an-hour cooking job a few weeks ago. She is eligible for unemployment insurance but can’t collect the benefits while going to school.

She can’t apply for welfare because she isn’t 18 years or older. Nor is she eligible for Social Services Department programs.

“We have no provisions for social assistance or a program to provide anyone under 18 who is independent,” Social Services spokesman Bob Scott said. “Her parents are responsible for her.”

Social Services cares for “children” under 18 years–children who the court has turned over to the province, but only if those children are neglected or abused.

Gibson, who must wait until next January to become an adult, is having difficulties enrolling in a post-secondary school because most stipulate that students must be 18 years or older or have a minimum education of Grade 12. Counsellors, she said, are sympathetic but lack solutions.

“I went to the military as my last option and even they require Grade 10,” she said.

Gibson knew a 13-year-old girl in the same predicament. “But she found herself a pimp.”

Others, she said, just accept the facts. “Now they are on welfare.”

The province may as well send these teens to school, otherwise they will likely end up collecting welfare for years, Gibson said.

“If I don’t find something to do soon, when I’m 18 I’m going to wind up collecting welfare and watching the idiot box all day.”

Originally published February 8, 1988 by the Calgary Herald (Calgary, AB), credited to Carol Harrington.