WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO YOU IF NO ONE KNEW YOU EXISTED?

For "kids off the grid," the answer to that question is their reality.

"Kids Off The Grid" are the most vulnerable and most hidden population of lost children because they are unreported as missing. Often born to mothers who are homeless, living on the streets, mentally ill and/or drug addicted, these children are invisible. Kids off the grid could be abandoned by their mothers and left to live by their own means. They may be the children of illegal immigrants or have left an abusive home.

Why they are off the grid does not matter. What matters is what happens to these infants, youth and teens.

Outpost for Hope estimates that while approximately 38,000 juveniles and youth are listed in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database, there are approximately 1.3 million children who are missing and living on the streets without anyone knowing they exist or are in danger.

Many of these children may have safe, loving family members that would take care of them, if they knew they existed. Finding "missing, missing" people and collaborating with others who work with at-risk children literally could save thousands of children from lives lost to the streets.

Who Is a "Kid off the Grid"?

• An adolescent or teenager who may be homeless or otherwise lost and is not officially listed as missing with law enforcement or in the National Crime Information Center database.

• A child missing from foster care who may not be officially listed as missing with any law enforcement agency or in the NCIC system.

• A child who is a runaway or has been abandoned/neglected who may not be officially listed as missing with any law enforcement agency or in the NCIC system.

• An illegal immigrant child or adult in the U.S. who disappears or is otherwise unaccounted for and is not listed as missing with any law enforcement agency in the NCIC system.

• An unaccounted for infant or child whose parent may be an unreported lost teenager or at risk adult.

The Harsh Reality for Girls and Women on the Streets

The realities faced by women and girls on the streets are harsh. Marginalized women, teenage girls, and their children are the easiest prey for predators, who know that many of these women and girls will not be missed.

In 2004, Gary Leon Ridgeway, The Green River Killer, confessed to murdering 48 teenage girls and women over two decades. "I picked them as victims because they were easy to pick up without being noticed. I knew they would not be reported missing right away and might never be reported missing. I picked them because I thought I could kill as many as I wanted without getting caught." Gary Leon Ridgeway, according to an Associated Press report.

Several of Ridgeway's victims still remain as unidentified Jane Does today.