Cabrera’s mother, Nydia Rodriguez, was offered a chance to respond to her son’s version of events. She says she didn’t throw her son out and never had a problem with her son’s being gay. “He is my son regardless,” she said.

She says she doesn’t remember anything about his coming home crying because Harry had died. But she does remember that he started running away when he was around 15. He would leave, come back home and then disappear again, she says.

“I would go look for him,“ she said. “I was upset and angry. I don’t know where he was. He never wanted to talk about it.”

Since he was 16, Cabrera has been spending time at New Alternatives, a drop-in center for young homeless LGBT people. He goes there almost every Sunday for a free meal, HIV testing and a talk with clients and caseworkers.

He calls the people there his family.

“He used to say that his mother was very homophobic,” said Kate Barnhart, director of New Alternatives. “He would sometimes go back to his mother’s place, but he would come back with horror stories.”

Cabrera’s sisters describe the home as turbulent.

“Ivan would leave for days and nobody knew where he was,” said Cabrera’s older sister Alicia. “When he came back, my mom would say ‘Where were you?’ and ‘Don’t do it again.’ As she said that, Ivan would be packing a bag to leave again.”

As with many runaways, it is not easy to give a reliable picture of what exactly Cabrera has been through or why and when he left home.

“I think a lot of families have issues with shame, and they hide things from outsiders,” said Barnhart. “I think in any family, they are going to have as many stories as family members. But kids who leave their home usually have a good reason.”

Notes from Cabrera’s files with New Alternatives tell fragments of his story:

On July 27, 2010, when Cabrera was 17: “Housing: Kicked out by mother staying w friend.”; “Food – client has no food; needs pantry.”

February 15, 2011: “Concerned about little sister’s upcoming birthday.”

February 22, 2011: “Housing: Mom kicked out; sleeping on train. Basic needs: Gave blanket, underwear, hygiene supply.”

May 17, 2011: “Basic needs: Asked for referrals to food pantries/soup kitchens in Union Sq area – gave list.”

October 26, 2011: “Employment: Nds Clothes for interview tomorrow.”

March 29, 2011: “Mental health: Crying about maternal rejection; talked about self harm.”

According to the files, he was referred to Sylvia’s Place, a shelter for homeless LGBT people, on April 1, 2011.

Ladedra Brown, overnight client services assistant at Sylvia’s Place, remembers Cabrera’s first night at the shelter. He came in covered in dirt, she said.

“I think he had been sleeping on the street,” she said. “And he slept hard that night – like he hadn’t slept in a long time.”

Cabrera says he was indeed sleeping on the street. Sometimes he spent the night in parks, other times on sidewalks and even inside big cardboard boxes, he says.

He says he often stole to make quick money and would sometimes trade sex for cash.

“It made me feel dirty,” he said. “I felt like it was disgusting. I didn’t want to put myself in that type of risk or danger, but I had to survive.”

He says he tried to get internships and jobs, but no one wanted to hire him because he smelled and didn’t look presentable.

At 18, he often slept in Union Square, he says. One day his mother found him there. She grabbed him by the ears and asked him to come back home, he says.

“I thought she was going to hit me. But she was actually pretty happy, and she said, ‘You are going to stay with me, and I’m so sorry.’”

Cabrera says he moved back home, but not for long because he had a new boyfriend and Cabrera’s mother didn’t approve. “So my mother told me to leave with him,” he said.

Today, Cabrera says, his mother has found a way to accept him. “I love my mom, and she felt so bad,” he said. “I told her, ‘Thank you for letting me learn what the world is,’ because a lot of people never get that chance to know what life can give to you. It’s horrible. I wish I had never gone through that.”