Bucharest's homeless kids find shelter underground

Cristina, 19, who is addicted to huffing Aurolac paint like many other Romanian homeless youth, climbs out of the underground canals where she lives with her cousins and other youth. "It's hard to live down here," she said. "We don't have water to wash ourselves and sometimes we have nothing to eat." Of Bucharest's 6,000 homeless, some 1,000 are children.

Below ground, many have arranged very basic makeshift 'living rooms.' Carina lives here with other homeless youth in Bucharest's vast system of heating and sewage canals. With no access to electricity, they use candles for light. Many of the homeless youth were raised in Romania's orphanage system and ran away when they were old enough to manage on their own.

Twenty-five years after the Romanian Revolution, a new generation of homeless, drug addicted youth have taken to the streets and found shelter underground. They live short, tragic lives, sometimes bearing children who are more often than not taken into state custody like their parents before them. Mona, 19, is pregnant with her second child. She lives underground with her boyfriend and daughter.

Remus, a homeless youth in his early 20s, sleeps alone in an underground space. His "home" is at Piata Victoriei, an important square in the center of Bucharest. Remus says he prefers to live alone rather than in the crowded underground canal near Gara de Nord. His living quarters are a room just big enough for him to lie across, near the city's heating system, so he stays warm in winter.

Romania's vast orphanage system was instituted during the time of the notorious Communist-era dictator Nicolae Ceausescu, who banned abortions. During the early days of the post-Communist period, in the 1990s, conditions at the orphanages reached an all-time low. All necessities were reportedly in short supply, including food and proper care. Many children ran away, looking for shelter.

A man reaches to bring his bag underground, through the entrance at a park next to Bucharest's Gara de Nord train station. The park is a gathering place for drug dealers and users. Gara de Nord was the first place where the Romanian street children discovered the underground tunnels.

An elderly couple lives in the basement of a drug den in a middle class neighborhood of Bucharest. Romania's capital city has a population of estimated 6,000 homeless, many of whom shelter underground especially during winter months.

Four year-old Pepita eats a snack while her cousin Cristina, 19, huffs Aurolac paint from a plastic bag. It's a type of metal paint which makes her high. "It's not easy to live in the canals. Sometimes there are so many people that I can not sleep," Pepita said. "I wish I could go to kindergarten."

Not all of the city's homeless live underground. Nicoleta, 32, pregnant with her third child, and her boyfriend have set up camp near the city's train station. Although her first two children are in state care, she says she is hoping to keep the baby. But she's afraid social services will take possession of her child, as they most often do in the case where the mother is homeless or drug addicted.

Sergiiu, 24, was abandoned as a child and raised in an orphanage. He later ran away and began living on the streets and using drugs. "I used to live underground too. But I wanted to get off drugs, you can't do that down there. That's why I moved to a quiet place under a bridge," he said. He is finishing his degree at a technical high school and is trying to get off the streets.