Ladue News - September 2008

Covenant House Missouri
An Open Door
Friday, September 5, 2008 11:40 AM CDT

One day in 1968, Franciscan priest Bruce Ritter asked his students the question, ‘What are you going to do to make the world a better place?’ At their next meeting, they asked him the same thing. Thus began the story of Covenant House, the international agency that works to bring homeless youth off the streets and give them an education, job and life skills training.

“Our mission is to assist homeless, runaway and at-risk youth between the ages of 16 and 21, to bring them off the street, keep them safe, and provide them with the skills necessary to live independently back in the community,” says Suzanne Wagener, executive director of Covenant House Missouri. “We use the words ‘unconditional love’ and ‘absolute respect’ in our mission statement. The foundation of all our programs is an open intake policy: We don’t turn a youth away when they come to the door. The first question we ask them is, ‘What do you need?’ We don’t go through the history of how they became homeless. It’s simply a different approach.”

Covenant House began in Fr. Ritter’s apartment in New York City and now has centers in 21 cities across six countries. Covenant House Missouri started in 1998 in the Shaw neighborhood with an outreach program. “We drove around with a van looking for kids on the street who might need help,” Wagener says. “Our outreach staff carries blankets and things to eat and drink. Eventually a youth says they’re willing to come into the shelter and check things out.”

Originally the program had two houses that provided transitional living for males and females between 16 and 21, but it lacked short-term crisis beds, a core service of Covenant House, used for up to 45 days during a family or individual crisis. “We recently renovated an old grade school and merged all of our existing programs. Our program expansion includes 20 crisis beds, and we have 20 transitional living beds. They’re little apartments,” Wagener says. “The teens learn life skills how to cook, budget money, work, go to school, all those things you typically learn in college.”

Other supportive services at Covenant House include GED literacy and help with employment from filling out a job application to what to wear and say at a job interview. Covenant House’s human resources director conducts mock interviews with youth and critiques how they look. She also uses the opportunity to talk about the importance of education and going further in life.

On any given day, between 40 and 50 kids stay in Covenant House’s building, that’s out of an estimated 1,000 to 1,500 homeless youth in the area. Across the country there are roughly 1.6 to 2.8 million runaway or homeless children, Wagener says. “It’s a hard number to track. Research groups will call them homeless or at-risk; there’s a variety of definitions. We have a line, 1-800-999-9999, that connects to our local outreach number staffed by our workers 24/7.” Last fiscal year there were nearly 9,900 calls from Missouri alone, with nearly 3,000 from St. Louis.

Reflecting on the challenges any residence for the homeless faces, Wagener says, “I think it’s difficult for neighbors to really welcome you into a community with open arms. Some neighbors love to have us and others are afraid the crime rate will go up. Battling stereotypical views of what a homeless teenager brings to the table may be our biggest challenge,” she says. “This last school year we had seven high school grads, though. Another seven obtained their GED. Three of the seven high school graduates went to college, one of them all the way to Huntsville, Ala., which is a huge accomplishment.”

On Oct. 18 at The Ritz-Carlton, Covenant House is throwing the first Stan Musial Hall of Fame Gala, honoring Musial, Rex and Jeanne Sinquefield, who are receiving the Spirit of Philanthropy award, and Dr. Fred Rottnek, who is receiving an Outstanding Volunteer award for providing free medical care to Covenant House youth for 10 years. The gala includes dinner and a silent and oral auction. Dinner and the awards ceremony will be emceed by Al Hrabosky, the ‘Mad Hungarian’ Cardinals player.

Looking to the future, Wagener hopes over the next year to build the strength of the new location. “It’s already strengthened our ability to serve kids, since our time isn’t spent driving from location to location,” she notes. Their next step will be creating independent living programs. Once the young adults are ready to leave transitional living, Covenant House wants to partner with landlords willing to rent to the youth while the organization provides supportive services to them in the community for six months or longer. “Those services would strengthen their ability to move into their adult roles,” Wagener says. “They have a great sense of freedom when they leave but not a lot of discipline. If you are used to other people providing that, then it can be a problematic time. We want to give them more structure so they can be successful adults.”