OBJECTIVES: To describe aspects of family life in young poor people in a region of Colombia in 2014. METHODS: A cross sectional study was conducted. A sample of 10.400 young poor people between 12-24 years old with public health insurance was extracted from a simple random sampling. A questionnaire was designed and applied to collect information about family life, domestic abuse and family function characteristics. A logistic multinomial model was developed to identify associations among variables. Family life with parents was the dependent variable of the model. Explanatory variables were age, sex, physical and verbal abuse, family satisfaction when having problems, family decision making, feeling loved from family and the satisfaction level with family time. RESULTS: From 10.400 young poor people, 90.7% reported to have a good relationship with their parents, wherein 56.2% were women and 43.8% were men. The mean age of this group was 16.2 years (SD±4.1). Frequency rate of young people who reported to have a regular or a bad relationship with parents was 8.4% and 0.6% respectively. Young people who have been either victim of physical (β=-0.06, p=0.003) or verbal abuse (β =-0.09, p=0.000), or those who not feel loved from family (β=-0.05, p=0.000) or who feel a low grade of satisfaction with family when having problems (β=-0.03, p=0.000), have a lower probability to have a good relationship with parents.  CONCLUSIONS: Family promotion and prevention programs in young people should encourage the use of primary prevention programs related to physical and verbal abuse. Family education on communication and problem solving is crucial to family welfare.