Eva Valadez will never forget the day she stepped into her first apartment. She finally had a space of her own where she could actually close the doors ― a nice change from the group home she’d lived in previously.
The only thing she had to furnish the one-bedroom unit was a stuffed tiger. The plush toy provided company in the quiet Norman apartment, along with the noisy trains that often passed by.
Valadez was excited to finally have her own space , but she missed her siblings a lot.
It was November 2018. She was just 17 at the time and in the middle of her junior year at Norman North High School. Most teenagers don’t live on their own until after they graduate, but Valadez was in what she says was a bad situation at home that she couldn’t stay in.
She moved from her parents’ house to a foster home, to a group home and then back to home .
The summer before she moved into her first apartment , Valadez said she ran away from home in east Norman into the woods with no shoes on.