Liz Murray forgave her drug-addicted parents for her fractured childhood in the Bronx, as the family lived from one welfare check to the next. She moved out at 15, figuring it was safer living on the streets than in a home where there was more cocaine and heroin than food on the kitchen table.

"People are surprised by the poverty and think that I wasn't cared for," Murray told ABCNews.com. "But that wasn't the case -- I was deeply loved."

Murray, now 33 and married with two children, is the inspiration for the television movie "Homeless to Harvard."

Murray became a top student at a Manhattan alternative school and wrote an essay on her personal journey that won her an Ivy League scholarship. But getting into Harvard was only half the battle. She struggled to be socially accepted and it took her nearly a decade to complete her studies.

At the same time, she lived and cared for her father, who was then sober, but also dying from AIDS.

Murray's story of resiliency was fodder for her 2010 memoir, "Breaking Night." By the time she was 19, she was motivating others on speaking tours and by 22, she was conducting workshops to guide others struggling with life's curveballs.

Now, in a new chapter in her journey, Murray is helping youth struggling with homelessness at New York's Covenant House, a nonprofit that provides shelter and support services for the city's youth population.

She is using storytelling as a tool to help abandoned youth tap into their inner spirit and to help them actualize their dreams. "Something in their family structure has fallen apart," said Murray.

Her work is part of a psychology and spirituality program at Columbia University's Teachers College, a pioneering effort to use meditation therapies and mindfulness to help teens overcome trauma and successfully transition into adulthood.

"I always had a mind to go back to school," said Murray. "Then one day I picked up a New York Times article and the title was 'Merging Spirituality and Clinical Psychology at Columbia,' What? It sounded interesting."

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'Homeless to Harvard:' Author Taps Spirituality to Help Others