Table Of Content
As part of the FY 2023 Enacted Budget, Governor Hochul prioritized a statewide effort to address street homelessness and support New York’s most vulnerable. These initiatives include the establishment of the Safe Options Support (SOS) teams throughout New York City and in targeted regions throughout the state where street homelessness is most widespread and the use of public funds to implement initiatives that expand housing access and protect tenants from eviction. Furthermore, the Governor increased funding by $2 million for Runaway and Homeless Youth Programs to support the expansion of crisis and transitional living beds for vulnerable youth.
Services
CovWorks is our workforce development and educational support program, that now also includes vocational training and Individual Placement and Support (IPS), an evidence-based practice that increases positive employment and mental health outcomes among vulnerable youth. For nearly 30 years, CovWorks has prepared at-risk and homeless young people the opportunity to obtain and maintain employment, improve and advance their education, and pursue sustainable career paths with livable wages. In addition to vocational programming, CovWorks partners with businesses across New York City, establishing relationships that will ensure that young people are able to obtain employment in various sectors and with various backgrounds and work history. For over 50 years, Covenant House New York (CHNY) has been a leader in providing residential services to vulnerable homeless, runaway, and exploited youth. As the largest provider of runaway and homeless youth services in New York City, CHNY serves over 1,600 young adult ages annually with an operating budget of over 30 million dollars.
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Mission, Vision & Values
Covenant House then acquired a group of buildings on West 44th Street and moved its administrative offices to the new location, which moved into a retrofitted cluster of buildings on West 41st Street in 1979. To address this challenge and ensure a community where all youth feel welcomed and heard, CHNY provided focused training for staff, in-person and electronic language courses for both staff and youth, and handheld translation devices, and we increased the number of our bilingual staff. Around the shelter signage now appears in multiple languages, including images and symbols in case a youth’s language is not represented.
National Runaway Safeline
Our doors are open to all young people who need help, regardless of their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression. We facilitate our services using trauma-informed principles to help homeless youth leave the streets and achieve independence. We also advocate for systemic change through public policy while promoting awareness of critical issues related to youth homelessness. Since 1972, we've opened our doors to more than 1.5 million young people experiencing homelessness and survivors of human trafficking. Every young person at Covenant House receives a warm bed, food, health and wellness services, a case manager, and, most important of all, unconditional love and absolute respect. Our Community Outreach and Drop-In Services ensure that schools, community centers, churches, and other community-based providers know about our mission and services so we can continue to engage youth who are experiencing homelessness.
For more than four decades, Covenant House has helped transform and save the lives of more than a million homeless, runaway and trafficked young people. We offer housing and support services to young people in need – helping over 46,000 boys and girls every year. Rights of Passage (ROP) is a longer-term (up to 24 months) residential program for young adults who have transitioned out of a crisis shelter. Young people in our ROP Program work closely with case managers and social workers to create personalized plans that will ensure their success on moving into independent, permanent housing.
CovWorks offers High School Equivalency prep, job readiness training, and a workforce initiative known as Individual Placement and Support, which promotes employment opportunities for young adults. CovWorks also offers vocational training programs for careers in nursing assistance, security, cosmetology, and the culinary industry. CHNY partners with the local colleges and universities, including the City University of New York and State University of New York system, for its CovWorks program. In 2021, 497 youth interacted with CovWorks, with 405 receiving employment help and 215 receiving education assistance. CHNY's CovWorksprogram provides enrolled youth with career and education services to advance academically and in the workforce.
Emergency Assistance
“The other service point that has been a learning curve for us is labor trafficking,” she notes. CHNY has a great deal of experience supporting young survivors of sex trafficking or commercial sexual exploitation. But among our newcomers, there is a high prevalence, she says, of having been labor trafficked in their home country or along their journey. Equal employment opportunity and having a diverse staff are fundamental principles at Covenant House International. Your support will ensure that young survivors at Covenant House will receive the care they need to heal, grow, and reach their potential.
Comprehensive primary health services, mental health services, social services including eligibility assistance, substance abuse services, and outreach services are provided. Our Youth Development programming emphasizes a young person’s existing strengths, builds capacity for resilience, and provides opportunities to develop healthy self-determination. We create programming, trips and events that reinforce life skills, address physical and mental health, financial literacy, and more, through a wide variety of activities. Youth Development programming is designed to remove social and economic barriers, and offer opportunities for growth in a non-judgmental environment. It is our goal to foster in our youth lifelong habits of healthy eating, physical activity, and promote physical and human development in a multitude of areas. As for health care, CHNY is fortunate to have our own on-site federally qualified health center that attends to youths’ primary health care needs.
Join the Fight to End Youth Homelessness
We hold a 4-Star rating (99%) from Charity Navigator, and a Platinum Seal of Transparency from GuideStar. If you have been the victim of a crime or need emergency assistance, call or contact your local police department below. If you or someone you know is a runaway, homeless, or at risk of becoming homeless, call the National Runaway Safeline or visit their website. When a young person from Chad came to our shelter speaking one of the country’s 120 local languages, but neither French nor Arabic, the dominant languages, CHNY turned to Chad’s consulate in New York for help.
Our Welcome Center and Youth Shelter team lovingly welcomes youth and meets their immediate needs for a hearty meal, a shower, fresh clothes, and a safe place to sleep. We then help young people develop a personal plan, with health, employment, education, and other goals. Sleep Out is your opportunity to spend a night outside and raise critical funds and awareness about the youth homelessness crisis. In February 1990, Covenant House founder and President Bruce Ritter was forced to step down in the wake of allegations of sexual and financial misconduct, beginning with the accusations of Kevin Kite, who accused Ritter of sexual abuse.
Under CEO Bill Bedrossian’s current leadership, Covenant House International now serves more than 80,000 young people who experience homelessness each year. In 1972, Covenant House was officially incorporated with its first intake center established at 504 LaGuardia Place in lower Manhattan. As an established nonprofit, Covenant House began to raise money to provide shelter for homeless youth across New York City. In 1976, Covenant House acquired a group of buildings on West 44th Street in order to create a multiservice center near the Port Authority Bus Terminal.
Ritter resigned but was never charged with sexual abuse.[6] Soon after, more accusations surfaced. Four men came forward publicly claiming to have been in sexual relationships with Ritter for years, including multiple who stated the relationships started when they were minors receiving services through Covenant House. A report later prepared for Covenant House counted a total of 15 reported cases of sexual acts between Ritter and youth and young adults who were living or volunteering at the shelter. In the late 1960s, the Reverend Bruce Ritter, a Franciscan priest, retired from his job as a professor at Manhattan College to begin a new ministry serving the city's poor. Joined by colleague Father James Fitzgibbon, he moved into a dilapidated tenement building in New York City's East Village.
CHNY saw the largest influx of young people from the migrant trail last summer, when southern governors began busing asylum seekers to New York City and other destinations far from the southern U.S. border. “For a very long time, because of our proximity to the Port Authority Bus Terminal and because we’re so well known in the area, many of the young people were coming directly to us,” Lisa says.
With volunteers, including friends, former students, and neighbors, he began an effort to help homeless and runaway young people. Adrian Gately, Patricia Kennedy, and Paul Frazier joined him to create the Covenant Community. In 1972, Covenant House was officially incorporated with its first intake center established at 504 LaGuardia Place. The project aligns with and reflects New York State’s efforts to identify and address root causes of homelessness and at-risk youth unemployment. These grants will also support the retention of CHNY’s 236 existing jobs and the creation of 25 new jobs. The project aligns with and reflects New York State's efforts to identify and address root causes of homelessness and at-risk youth unemployment.
"Supportive housing and social services are critical to helping ensure all New Yorkers have access to the resources they need to lead successful and meaningful lives," Governor Hochul said. We are steadfast in our commitment to build a present and future of safety, healing, housing, and opportunity for young people facing homelessness. Covenant House is committed to providing unconditional love, absolute respect, and relentless support for each young person who walks through our doors. For over 50 years, Covenant House New York has been a leader in providing residential services to youth experiencing homelessness.
These grants will also support the retention of CHNY's 236 existing jobs and the creation of 25 new jobs. We provide direct Legal Services to our young people through in-house attorneys and referrals to outside service providers. Coordinating closely with Covenant House staff, we identify potential legal issues and work with young people to address them every step of the way. In addition, we regularly present a comprehensive series of detailed “Know Your Rights” workshops for young people and policy workshops for staff so they are better able to identify potential legal issues facing our young people. Covenant House New York’s mission is to help each young person find safety and refuge from the dangers of living on the streets.
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