About Us
Who Are the Lost?
Dinner & A Movie is committed to helping Portland’s lost youth through providing for their physical, psychological, emotional, mental and spiritual needs. We believe in the value of the whole person, and seek to enable street youth to progress in every facet of their lives. The mission of Dinner and a Movie is dedicated to re-parenting the broken hearts of our city’s lost youth. We share the love of Jesus by providing hope and a chance at new life.
As they exist on the streets they embark on journeys that would make other people shudder. Dinner & A Movie wants to provide them with a new road map, giving them the help they need to get to a better destination than the one that is currently offered to them.
Portland, Oregon has the highest population, per capita, of homeless youth in the United States. A conservative estimate reports the streets of Portland to be home to 2,500 youth. Of these 2,500, two-thirds are native Oregonians. These numbers are our city’s lost youth… but who are the lost?
They are the beaten, hated, molested, ignored, addicted, scorned, sold and exploited. Up to 90% of homeless youth are sexually and/or physically abused prior to street life (Robert C. Coates, A Street Is Not a Home: Solving America’s Homeless Dilemma [Prometheus Books: Buffalo, NY, 1990]), with 80% of the sexual abuse victims denying their abuse (Department of Justice, 1997). 74% of sexual abuse is committed by either an immediate or extended family member (ibid). Eventually over 80% will turn to prostitution during their lives (New Avenues for Youth: Portland, OR, 2004). Street youth become targets for gangs, pimps and other predators.
