Covenant House alumnus Anderson Footman's journey on American Idol has come to an end the way it began -- with an amazing performance by this young man so filled with talent, spirit, and a desire to use his gifts to help others. 

After his performance at the House of Blues, Anderson was encouraged by Jennifer Lopez to keep writing and to keep sharing his gift.  Anderson then walked off and was met by a very special support group -- Covenant House President Kevin Ryan, Anderson's Covenant House mentor Norm Lotz, and a group of current Covenant House residents from our program in California.  

"You guys are my inspiration," Anderson said to the Covenant House kids.

Through hard work and perseverance, Anderson has become a voice for our homeless youth.  His time on American Idol has ended for this year,  but his personal journey is just beginning.   Homeless youth across the world will see him, and realize it's possible that they can achieve their dreams, too. 

See his performance here...

idolbloglive.com/idolblog/hollywood-anderson-house-of-blues-performance

During this brutally cold winter, Covenant House outreach teams across the country are reaching out to the homeless with food, clothing, jackets, blankets, and love.  This Fox News report follows Stephanie, one of our street outreach counselors in Michigan.

Fox 2 News Headlines

Covenant House Testifies Before U.S. Senate About Our Work Protecting Trafficking Victims

            On February 24, our Director of Anti-Human Trafficking Initiatives at Covenant House New York Jayne Bigelsen testified on behalf of Covenant House/Casa Alianza/La Alianza before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee. The invitation grew from the groundbreaking study Jayne and Fordham University undertook documenting our kids' experiences of being exploited and trafficked.

            "We need to do our best to take away the pimps' ability to force our children to choose between selling their bodies and having a place to sleep," Jayne testified.  "To do that, we need to work toward the goal of ensuring that every homeless young person has access to safe beds and services.

            "An important first step toward that goal is passing the Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act.  I join with many other advocates for trafficked youth in supporting this act.  Clearly, combating youth homelessness is tantamount to preventing human trafficking.  We will never win this war against human trafficking within our borders unless we first win the war to end youth homelessness."

            Jayne thanked Senator Patrick Leahy and Senator Chuck Grassley for the opportunity to testify before the Committee, and cited the Senate women's caucus and Senator Amy Klobuchar, who has visited our Covenant House programs for trafficked children in Mexico City.  Jayne also gave a special thanks to Senator Dianne Feinstein for her many years of strong advocacy for homeless and trafficked children served by Covenant House California in Oakland and Hollywood. 

Read Jayne Bigelsen's full testimony here

More than 20 St. Louis community leaders slept out in the cold Thursday night in sleeping bags and cardboard boxes to raise money and awareness for Covenant House.

Covenant House helps young homeless people, aged 16 to 21, like 21-year-old Markeith Jackson.

When his mother died three years ago, Markeith had nowhere to go. He often slept in cold, vacant houses. His father said he couldn’t live with him and suggested Covenant House.

Markeith felt instantly at home there.

‘‘It was amazing because the same covers on the bed were the same covers I had when I was living with my mom, so it was like, I got super comfortable,” he said.

But it’s not just a warm place to sleep. Teens can stay here for up to two years, where they benefit from mentoring, a GED program, and internship opportunities.

‘‘A lot of our kids don’t trust anybody when they first come through that door, they’ve been abused and neglected, and lot of that is normalized for them,” said Covenant House Executive Director Sue Wagener. ‘‘So we really have to work on building trust in the very beginning and then figure out what their short and long term goals are.”

Markeith is one of 52 Covenant House residents. Now he’s sharing his story with the community leaders sleeping out. Altogether, the executives raised more than $200,000 for Covenant House, surpassing their goal.

Mark Benson, co-founder of Ameritime, is participating.

‘‘We’ll be out in the cold for five, six, seven hours, and then we get to go back to a totally different environment,” Benson said. ‘‘It’s difficult to fathom what it would be like to be homeless 24/7, as these kids and what they have to deal with.”

For some of these executives, the sleep out is so impactful, that they start internships for Covenant House kids, like Markeith. The 21-year-old is about to say goodbye to Covenant House. After an internship, he now works full-time at aerospace company HM Dunn. He loves it.

“’I actually got approved for an apartment, so I move within the next two weeks,” he said.

You can watch the video here.

Some more coverage that includes Covenant House:

Yahoo News

http://news.yahoo.com/dad-builds-luge-track-ice-video-141644432.html

NJ.com

http://www.nj.com/union/index.ssf/2015/03/nj_dad_builds_backyard_luge.html

Today Show

http://www.today.com/parents/go-watch-kids-gleefully-slide-down-dads-epic-luge-track-2D80524068

Check out Joe’s team page and learn why he and his friend’s are sleeping out.

We at Covenant House worked closely with the two young survivors at the heart of Toronto's first criminal prosecution to lead to a sex trafficking conviction. Working with these young people fueled our determination to expand our efforts to help youth escape the chains of modern trafficking.

So you can understand why we are tremendously excited to announce we will be opening a transitional housing program designed especially for sex-trafficking survivors in Toronto early next year, as another critical step in our work to fight the human trafficking of homeless youth. The residential program, whose location will remain confidential to protect the residents, is a broad partnership with Toronto Community Housing, the city's housing authority; the municipal government; the police; and the Women's Initiatives Committee of The Rotary Club of Toronto, which played a leading role in bringing the project to fruition. The seven youth, ages 16 to 24, who will call this place home for up to two-years will know that a wide swath of the community cares about them and their futures.

The opening of the house early next year in Toronto will follow shortly after we open Aspire House in New York City, a ten-bed therapeutic home for young trafficking survivors, in connection with the LifeWay Network, thanks to a $1-million anonymous grant.

Our new homes for trafficking survivors in Toronto and New York City will share much in common with our other specialized programs for young trafficking survivors in Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala. We are taking a similarly broad-brush approach to our anti-trafficking work overall, gathering a large number of partners together to prevent and prosecute the forced sexual exploitation of young people, often but not always girls, and to give survivors the care they need. Our new housing programs in Toronto and New York City are only one piece of our overall work.

Sex trafficking in Canada, like in the United States, is a poorly understood but serious problem. In a survey by Covenant House Toronto, we determined that most Ontarians are unaware of the extent of the issue. Many people believe the most common victims are trafficked internationally; in fact, an estimated 71 percent of trafficking victims in Canada are Canadian citizens.

Homeless young people are particularly vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation. "We estimate that as many as 1,000 of our youth are involved in some form of the sex trade annually, mostly trading sex for survival," said Bruce Rivers, executive director of Covenant House Toronto, which served almost 3,000 young people last year. "Their desperation makes them highly vulnerable to sexual exploitation for profit."

While data can be hard to come by, it is estimated that 30 percent of homeless youth in Canada have been involved in some form of the sex trade, often as a strategy for survival. A 2013 study by Fordham University and Covenant House New York showed that of about 200 randomly selected young people at the shelter, almost a quarter had been trafficked or participated in survival sex, undertaken in exchange for something of value like food and shelter. About half said they could have avoided this fate if they had only had a safe place to stay. A second study, focused on homeless youth in New Orleans, will be released shortly, and gives us no cause for relief.

We know pimps often search out and prey on young people who lack shelter and familial support. Such kids, like the ones we see every day, are particularly vulnerable to a sweet-talking guy who pretends to be a boyfriend, but turns out to be an exploiter.

In Toronto we will focus many of our efforts on prevention and early intervention, to help increase awareness of the problem and to reduce its scope. We will help people understand the potential danger of sexual predators, signs that someone may be trafficked, and how to take action.

"We know that homeless youth are targeted by predators, and we also know that unsuspecting young girls in schools, malls and online are also lured into this kind of sex slavery," Mr. Rivers said.

We also plan to offer anti-trafficking trainings to shelter workers; staff at businesses like motels that may interact with trafficking victims; medical professionals, who often help them in emergency rooms; and city workers, to help them recognize and help young people who are trafficked.

As part of our crisis intervention plans, we plan to put together an outreach program to make contact with trafficking victims and provide a network of services to them, including safe beds and referrals to legal and medical services. Program residents will receive transformational support, including trauma and addiction counselling, life skills training and educational and vocational support through Covenant House and partner agencies. Free legal assistance will also be available from the firm of Baker & McKenzie for young people in Toronto.

We will never win the war against the human trafficking of children and youth until we first embrace and win the fight against youth homelessness. As long as our subways, bus terminals, abandoned buildings and malls continue to shelter youth with nowhere else to turn, pimps and predators will have an ample supply of desperate youth.

This article was published on March 4, 2015. 

I urge you to read the sobering results of a new study by the Modern Slavery Research Project at Loyola University and Covenant House New Orleans. The report, released Tuesday, underscores how desperately homeless youth need safe places to stay, appropriate counseling and services, and job opportunities.

The study reveals that 14 percent of homeless youth staying at Covenant House New Orleans had been victims of human trafficking, and 25 percent had been involved in sexual labor (trafficked for sex or worked as commercial sex workers). The results were strikingly similar to those in a study we did two years ago in New York.

Every time I listen to our homeless young people, I'm floored by the traumas they've endured. One of our young people in New Orleans reported that her pimp locked her in a dog cage at night. Another of the girls said a pimp "threatened to shoot up my sister's house ... and she had kids so I didn't want that." So she had sex with a string of loveless johns, earning money for the pimp's benefit.

Stories like these must be told. If we don't know the extent of trafficking among homeless young people, we won't be able to help them effectively. Reliable figures using well-tested survey instruments, collected and analyzed with academic rigor, are hard to come by in the shadowy world of sex trafficking, where victims and survivors hesitate to identify themselves or to ask for help.

Covenant House New Orleans serves about 700 youths and children a year. Homeless kids, ages 16 to 22, come to us on the edge of the French Quarter seeking food, clothing, shelter, educational and employment opportunities, as well as medical and mental health care. We also care for their babies and toddlers. Our mission?  To give them absolute respect, unconditional love and a shot at the bright futures they deserve.

In interviews with 99 residents between February and June of last year, researchers learned that 11 of our young adults had been victims of sex trafficking, and five had been trafficked for their labor. If that frequency holds throughout the year, we will likely see 86 trafficking victims a year at Covenant House New Orleans and 154 youths who have been involved in sexual labor.

Tragically, some had been prostituted by their family members or intimate partners. One reported that when she was younger than 11, her mother had made her spend the night having sex with a man in exchange for a place for her and her mother to stay. Several had been forced to sell drugs or work under extremely dangerous conditions.

Every young woman in the survey who had been trafficked said she had experienced a high level of emotional trauma, yet specialized counseling for sexually exploited youth is scarce.

When we partnered with Fordham University and completed a similar study at Covenant House New York, I'd hoped the somber results would be an outlier. The news from New York was bad—almost 1 in 4 of our surveyed young people had been trafficked (using the federal definition of the term) or had participated in survival sex.

It turns out the exploitation and trafficking of youth surveyed in the Big Easy is just as prevalent as it is among surveyed youth in the Big Apple. Future studies of our youth are in the planning stages for Covenant Houses in Los Angeles, Oakland, California, Philadelphia, and Atlantic City and Newark in New Jersey.

The New Orleans study uncovered some results that surprised us, and highlight the need for this additional research. For example, 3 of the 11 sex trafficking victims were male, and young men accounted for a third of the reported cases of child sex trafficking.

While our sample size is extremely small, we hope the report stimulates further research on this population, as there are extremely few services available for male trafficking survivors, and incidents of male child sexual exploitation appear to be under-reported. Three of the 11 sex trafficking victims were lesbian, gay or bisexual, which echoes what we found in our New York study.

This new study underscores how difficult it must be for a homeless young person simply to walk down the street. Almost a third of the kids interviewed said strangers had approached them to trade sex, or to participate in other illegal or informal work, most often in the sex trade. The kids told us these "creepy" encounters made them fear being out late in the city. The kids valued the protection Covenant House offers.

It made me think about how scary it is for the young people who don't make it to us, and face a night on a park bench or a bus station, where they are more vulnerable than ever to people who want to exploit them.

To keep young people safe from the horrors of trafficking, the report makes the following recommendations:

1. We need more beds for homeless youth, to keep them safe from predators and to reduce the pipeline from homelessness to sexual exploitation.
2. Kids who have been trafficked, and those at risk, need a stronger array of services, so they don't fall through the cracks and into the arms of pimps.
3. We need more jobs that pay a living wage, and more skills training for vulnerable youth, so no one feels compelled to sell his or her body to make a living.
4. We need to expand our care for young men who have been commercially sexually exploited, as they can be hesitant to talk about their experiences.
5. Young people aging out of foster care at age 18 without a permanent family need more services and supports. According to the report, "Many of our respondents suggested that they only participated in survival sex or the sex trade once they found themselves homeless as a result of aging out."
6. A 2014 law in Louisiana allowing trafficking victims to have prostitution charges removed from their records needs to be publicized, to allow more survivors to find new lives.
7. We must train law enforcement officers to recognize trafficking victims, so survivors can receive legal support and relevant services, rather than criminal sentences.

No young person, in New Orleans, New York, or anywhere in our country or world, should be exploited and enslaved. No one should steal their bodies or labor for profit. We know how to fix the scourge of human trafficking. Armed with solid research and the will to work for reform, we should be able to protect the most vulnerable among us. Please join us in this important work at AbolishChildTrafficking.org.

NOTE: Today the Modern Slavery Research Project at Loyola University and Covenant House New Orleans are releasing their new study, "Human Trafficking and Exploitative Labor Among Homeless Youth in New Orleans." It quantifies what we have seen for years, a direct pipeline from homelessness to sexual exploitation. In her guest column today, Laura T. Murphy, the study's primary author, discusses the findings, and the need for quick funding to help trafficking survivors.

By Laura T. Murphy

Over the last ten years, legislators in my home state of Louisiana and those in many other states have passed a wide swath of bills that make human trafficking illegal. Those laws begin to give precision to the definitions of the force, fraud, and coercion that characterize trafficking. They have provided additional protections for victims of forced labor. They have increased penalties for offenders. And they have suggested that we need to increase support to survivors who are in need of quality, specialized services.

In our recent study titled "Human Trafficking and Exploitative Labor Among Homeless Youth in New Orleans," we interviewed 99 youth residing at Covenant House New Orleans, a shelter that cares for homeless, runaway, and at-risk youth age 16-22. Talking to the young people there, we learned just how necessary these new laws are. 14% of the homeless or marginally-housed youth that we interviewed had been victims of human trafficking. 11% had been trafficked for sex and 5% for labor - 2% had been trafficked for both. One out of every four of the young people we interviewed had engaged in some form of sexual labor, including exotic dancing or survival sex - trading sex for basic necessities in a time of desperation. For several of them, they had been traded for sex for much of their childhood. At least two of them had literally been kidnapped, held captive, and sold for sex.

The young people we spoke with admitted that they had never reported these crimes to the police because they feared the people who held them captive or were afraid of being considered criminals themselves by law enforcement. They often did not have a clear vocabulary to explain what had happened to them and thus had not been treated for the traumas associated with those experiences. Many of them had no route to gain assistance because they were legally considered adults (above the age of 18) when they sold sex and were likely to be labeled criminals, even when they had felt forced to engage in the sex trade.

As a result, our report makes some urgent recommendations. In New Orleans and around the United States, we need to provide more specialized services and shelter beds dedicated to young people who have been commercially sexually exploited. We need mandatory training for law enforcement in which they learn to identify and assist victims of human trafficking. We need legislation that will revise the current "aging out" policies that turn a victim of human trafficking into a sex criminal on their eighteenth birthday.

But we consistently run into the problem that there is essentially no funding for these programs written into the laws that we have. Here in Louisiana, and in other states across the country, legislators are hesitant to spend money on the vital services that will help people escape modern day slavery.

The federal government is poised to pass more anti-trafficking legislation in the coming session - bills that will determine where funding goes to address trafficking in the coming years. The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, spearheaded by Sen. John Cornyn (R - Texas) admirably creates new funding for survivor supports and restitution. The New York Times' March 5 editorial applauds the protections and services that this new bill will provide. Many of the nation's most important anti-trafficking organizations have backed the bill as well.

New money to help victims - supporting new shelter beds and services, creating opportunities for survivors to defend themselves legally, training law enforcement to identify their victimization, and even more crucially, creating new jobs and housing opportunities that make escape possible for those who are being held captive - we can all agree that's money well spent.

And it's money that we cannot wait for. Young people are in urgent need of prevention, protection, and rehabilitation services, and the programs that serve this population are often under-funded and stretched to capacity. The proposed funding that will support these programs, however, is created through fining people convicted of trafficking.

We need funding that does not depend on prosecutions - which are few at this time and require years to process. In 2013, there were only 174 such convictions in this country.

Instead, we recommend federally-funded allocations that provide the direly-needed resources that will support anti-trafficking efforts. These are funds that can change the lives of so many people who are suffering and have woefully limited options when they need a place to stay, or when they seek out legal assistance, or when they require a sensitive first-responder who recognizes what they are going through and the supportive care they need.

Those remedies cannot be funded only through fines. Funding human trafficking assistance programs through federally-allocated resources must be a priority if we expect to help the people who live in forced labor and captivity in our own country to regain their freedom.

SFE Energy and Covenant House Help to Keep Homeless Youth Warm This Winter in the Northeast

SFE Energy is helping Covenant House youth all over the east coast stay warm through this brutal winter by donating to our crisis shelters.

"The winter is an especially trying time for homeless youth, having to endure frigid temperatures," said Gerry Haggarty, President of Summitt Energy. "We are happy to support Covenant House in their efforts to keep the youth in New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey warm and off of the streets."

Each year in the U.S. alone, as many as 2 million youth will face a period of homelessness, and every year more than 5,000 of these young people lose their lives to the streets. Covenant House hopes to inspire homeless and at-risk young people to move toward safe, stable, and loving places where they can achieve independent living and pursue their life dreams.  The goal of Covenant House is to help each young person they meet and provide the tools they need in guiding them on a path toward success.

"When people like our friends at SFE Energy invest in our young people, amazing things happen," said Covenant House President Kevin Ryan. "SFE Energy is helping our homeless kids believe in themselves and pursue their dreams."

SFE Energy feels privileged to have been able to lend a hand to Covenant House during this cold winter season. This donation is part of the ongoing relationship between SFE Energy and Covenant House.

SFE (www.sfeenergy.com ) is a leading retail energy marketer providing natural gas and electricity Fixed Price Protection Programs to residential and commercial customers in the Northeastern United States. SFE and its affiliates currently market in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Maryland and are continuing to expand across the Northeastern United States.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SENATE FAILS TO DELIVER HELP TO TRAFFICKING VICTIMS

March 17, 2015 -- Covenant House International, the largest charity in the Americas directly serving homeless, runaway and trafficked youth, heard the news from Capitol Hill today with dismay: the United States Senate failed to end a filibuster in its consideration of the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act (JVTA), S.178, which strengthens laws against sex trafficking and creates a fund to help victims and survivors. A similar bill had passed the House with bipartisan support, which the Senate bill had enjoyed, too, until partisan issues scuttled a vote.

The bill, which had seemed certain to pass early last week, is now in limbo. Politics, for now, has unintentionally resulted in a win for the pimps.

As advocates for homeless, runaway and trafficked youth, Covenant House International rallied thousands of our supporters across the United States to urge legislators to pass this bill. We joined with 90 other organizations in signing a letter  of support from the Alliance to End Slavery and Trafficking (ATEST).

“If this diverse coalition of victims and advocates, who hail from across the political spectrum, can come together to stand with trafficking survivors, why can't our senior Senators, whose job it is to protect and safeguard the most vulnerable members of our country?” asked Kevin Ryan, the president of Covenant House International.

Recent research involving young people helped by Covenant House in New Orleans and New York City shows that about a quarter of the homeless youth surveyed had been victims of sexual exploitation, either because they were trafficked, or because they had engaged in survival sex or sexual labor.

Homeless youth who have nowhere else to turn are particularly vulnerable to trading their bodies in order to survive. Half of the homeless young people at Covenant House said they would not have resorted to survival sex or succumbed to trafficking if they’d had a safe place to stay and people who cared.

One critically important proposed amendment to the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act is the Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act, which provides important resources for homeless young people, keeping them safe from exploitation.

“It is long past time for the Senate to set aside politics and protect the most vulnerable among us,” said Ryan.

Covenant House International urges you to contact your Senators and ask them to pass the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, which is crucial to the well-being and protection of our most vulnerable youth. The Senate’s failure to reach an agreement today is not the final word, and we look forward to working with lawmakers in both parties to find a constructive path forward to ensure justice, safety and protection for trafficked, homeless and runaway youth.

Covenant House President Kevin Ryan is available to speak about this issue.  

Please contact:

 Tom Manning at (212) 727-4920, tmanning@covenanthouse.org Cenia Hampton, Covenant House: Office (212) 727-6582, cell (501) 517-4476, champton@covenanthouse.org

You would think that the last place a winter-fatigued New Yorker would want to visit in early March would be Alaska. But Covenant House President and dog lover Kevin Ryan made the trip to take part in the 2015 Iditarod’s ceremonial start March 7.

When he landed in Anchorage the day before the famous 1,000-mile dog sled race, irony of ironies, there was no snow. Apparently it had all been shipped here.

“From my hotel room I could hear the trucks working through the night bringing in 11 miles of snow to downtown Anchorage for the course,” Ryan recalled. “We were the 64th team to depart and by the time Cindy Gallea, my musher, left, better than half the course was slush. It was very rough going.”

Ryan had been invited to take part in the ceremonial start to the race as an “IditaRider.” It’s kind of like being invited to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a baseball game. It was an honor bestowed on Ryan in his role as president to help raise awareness about ongoing homelessness in Alaska, where Covenant House, the Catholic-run shelter for teenagers and young adults under age 21, serves more than 100 homeless youth a day.

Covenant House has served more than 3,800 individuals a year since the first Alaskan shelter opened in 1988. GCI Alaska, the state’s largest telecommunications wireless network, has been a major supporter of Covenant House and is also a sponsor of the Iditarod. It all came about when Ryan visited Alaska last August to do a site inspection of the facility. During that visit Ryan told one of his hosts he was training to run in the New York City Marathon.

“Somebody offhandedly said something to me about how impressed they were with the marathon and I said, ‘Not at all, the most impressive race is the Iditarod!’ It was that short and that off-handed,” Ryan explained of how he came to be invited.

Ryan got to travel the first rather bumpy 14 miles of the famed route, which wasn’t without mishap due to the treacherous conditions. About halfway through the course they had an unfortunate encounter with a tree.

“Cindy was doing everything in her power to steer us away from the tree but because the dog took a turn to the inside and because there was no snow she wasn’t able to shift her weight and have the sled tack left. So as we cut this turn the sled just headed right for the tree,” Ryan explained. “She braked as hard as she could and it was probably the difference between hitting it at 15 miles per hour and hitting it at 5 miles per hour.”

Gallea, a nurse practitioner from Minnesota, is an experienced musher who was appearing in her 13th and final Iditarod. During their time together Ryan said he was able to talk to her about Covenant House.

“She is a wonderful human being,” Ryan said. “Her two passions are nursing/medicine and her dogs. She decided to let this be her last Iditarod because she’s going to get a Ph.D. in nursing medicine. And she was saying to me, ‘You know if you open a Covenant House in the Twin Cities I really want to be a part of that.’ And just as it happens we are looking at the possibility of opening up a house for trafficked girls in Minnesota!

“And so I just thought how providential is God that I am on a dogsled team in Alaska in the Iditarod and talking with someone who I think could well become part of our launching a Covenant House movement in Minnesota. I got to tell you, honestly, the experience itself was amazing but being with Cindy made it transcendent.”

The day before the big race Ryan had the opportunity to visit the kennels and meet some of the dogs that would be pulling the big sleds. For a dog lover—Ryan, appropriately has two adopted shelter dogs at home—it was a wet, sloppy kiss-fest. “I haven’t been kissed that much ever,” he said. “The dogs were slobbering all over me.”

The kids of Covenant House also had a role to play. Sixteen were selected to act as handlers at the start of the race. Ryan explained that once the dogs have been harnessed, there is about a 30-minute wait before the run starts. During that time the anxious, excited dogs have to be handled, talked to and petted to calm them down. The Covenant House kids fulfilled that role.

“It was really cool to have the kids be a part of that,” Ryan enthused. “One of the boys, he was the last one to bring a dog to the front, everybody else had their hands tied up so there was no safety net for him. He had to get this done. So I said, ‘Are you OK? And he looked at me very seriously and said, ‘I’m working very hard to be someone that others can rely on.’ He saw this as a rite of passage for himself.”

Being homeless in New York City is certainly not easy. It is dirty, dangerous and uncomfortable. Being homeless in Anchorage is all of that but there is an extra element, the long, usually harsh, unforgiving winter, which can be life-threatening.

“It’s cold and dark and those problems more than anything else pose a threat to our kids,” noted Ryan. “At Covenant House we say that once a young person has been on the street 72 hours all bets are off because they become desperate. But in Alaska kids don’t have 72 hours. I think if a young person doesn’t have a place to sleep that night they become desperate. Arctic homelessness is unlike homelessness anywhere else.”

This article was written by Ron Lajoie. It was published on March 18, 2015. You can read the original article here.

Please click here to view coverage on New York’s efforts with Sleep Out: Young Professional Edition. 

300 Young Professionals Brave Cold, Snow For Our Kids

The first day of Spring brought snow to New York City and hope to homeless youth as hundreds of young professionals slept on the streets to raise over $458,000 for the life-affirming programs offered by Covenant House.

“Tonight you will sleep on the streets as a community of 300 young professionals who have decided to make an amazing impact in the lives of our kids,” Covenant House Executive Director Creighton Drury told the participants before they went out into the cold. “While you are trying to sleep in the snow outside our shelter tonight, know that there will be 350 formerly homeless young people who will be sleeping safely inside. Tomorrow they will wake up knowing that you care about them, and that will fill them with hope. You will fill them with that hope.

“We are very proud of our programs at Covenant House, the crisis care we provide, our medical services, our job training,” said Drury. “But at the heart of those programs are the people that make up this amazing community we call Covenant House. People like you who see the goodness and the promise of our kids.”
This third annual Young Professional Sleep Out continues a nationwide movement that follows a November effort that included over 920 executives who slept out on the streets in the United States and Canada and raised over $5 million. Last summer, some of Broadway’s biggest stars slept out in support of homeless youth at Covenant House, and this May will be the second annual Sleep Out: Mother’s Edition.

“You are giving a tremendous gift to our kids by being here tonight,” said Covenant House New Jersey Executive Director Jim White. “I want you to know that each of you will leave here tomorrow morning with a gift as well. For some of you, it may be a deeper appreciation for what you have. For others, it might be a calling to do even more to help the young people you are helping in such an extraordinary way tonight. Whatever gift it is, I hope it enriches your lives in the same way your presence tonight is enriching the lives of our kids.”
In addition to New York, young professionals slept out at five other Covenant House locations around the country, with over 450 participants nationwide. At each Sleep Out, Covenant House residents sat with participants and courageously shared their stories.

“I grew up in Los Angeles, and my dad left me when I was 2 years old,” said Gene. “My uncles abused me. By the age of five I already knew how to cook and clean because I was pretty much on my own.”
Even though he suffered unspeakable abuse throughout his childhood, Gene graduated high school. “After Hurricane Sandy, I was homeless and completely alone,” said Gene. “I was living in the woods. Covenant House outreach workers brought me to the shelter, and that is when my life turned around.”
Today Gene lives in the Covenant House Rights of Passage long-term residential program, has a full-time job, and is planning to study business so he can operate his own bakery someday.
“Thank you for being here tonight,” Gene said. “By being here, you are changing lives … just the way Covenant House changed mine.”

The first day of Spring brought snow to New York City and hope to homeless youth as hundreds of young professionals slept on the streets to raise over $458,000 for the life-affirming programs offered by Covenant House.

“Tonight you will sleep on the streets as a community of 300 young professionals who have decided to make an amazing impact in the lives of our kids,” Covenant House Executive Director Creighton Drury told the participants before they went out into the cold. “While you are trying to sleep in the snow outside our shelter tonight, know that there will be 350 formerly homeless young people who will be sleeping safely inside. Tomorrow they will wake up knowing that you care about them, and that will fill them with hope. You will fill them with that hope.

“We are very proud of our programs at Covenant House, the crisis care we provide, our medical services, our job training,” said Drury. “But at the heart of those programs are the people that make up this amazing community we call Covenant House. People like you who see the goodness and the promise of our kids.”

This third annual Young Professional Sleep Out continues a nationwide movement that follows a November effort that included over 920 executives who slept out on the streets in the United States and Canada and raised over $5 million. Last summer, some of Broadway’s biggest stars slept out in support of homeless youth at Covenant House, and this May will be the second annual Sleep Out: Mother’s Edition.

“You are giving a tremendous gift to our kids by being here tonight,” said Covenant House New Jersey Executive Director Jim White. “I want you to know that each of you will leave here tomorrow morning with a gift as well. For some of you, it may be a deeper appreciation for what you have. For others, it might be a calling to do even more to help the young people you are helping in such an extraordinary way tonight. Whatever gift it is, I hope it enriches your lives in the same way your presence tonight is enriching the lives of our kids.”

In addition to New York, young professionals slept out at five other Covenant House locations around the country, with over 450 participants nationwide. At each Sleep Out, Covenant House residents sat with participants and courageously shared their stories.
“I grew up in Los Angeles, and my dad left me when I was 2 years old,” said Gene. “My uncles abused me. By the age of five I already knew how to cook and clean because I was pretty much on my own.”

Even though he suffered unspeakable abuse throughout his childhood, Gene graduated high school. “After Hurricane Sandy, I was homeless and completely alone,” said Gene. “I was living in the woods. Covenant House outreach workers brought me to the shelter, and that is when my life turned around.”
Today Gene lives in the Covenant House Rights of Passage long-term residential program, has a full-time job, and is planning to study business so he can operate his own bakery someday.

“Thank you for being here tonight,” Gene said. “By being here, you are changing lives … just the way Covenant House changed mine.”

For years, anti-trafficking advocates have worked to garner support for legislation to tackle human slavery, one of the cruelest crimes on the books. Legislators from both sides of the aisle were receptive to this work, and were set to consider the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, called "the most significant anti-trafficking legislation to come before the Senate in over a decade."

The gist of the bill is unassailable: Traffickers and people who buy the sexual services of children should be punished, trafficked people should be given help, not handcuffs, and the services they need should be funded with the help of the people who exploited them.

When it reached the full Senate, the bill, which has passed the House, faced no opposition — after all, who is in favor of selling the bodies of vulnerable children? As the act headed to the full Senate, it seemed like a vote to crack down on sex trafficking would be a shoo-in, as uncontroversial as a law in favor of, say, salt, or sunshine. 

But no. For going on three weeks now, the Senate has been hung up on an amendment to the bill prohibiting its victims' fund, collected from fines on traffickers, from being used for abortions. As the abortion language represents the sole area of disagreement among lawmakers on this vital legislation, trafficking abolitionists are eager to see a compromise worked out.

The basic principles of the bill must prevail. The law would provide justice to some of the most vulnerable people in our nation: young people who do not have homes and do not have the strong family support needed to keep them free from people who would exploit them. 

Recent research with Loyola University in New Orleans, involving young people helped by Covenant House, the largest charity in the Americas serving homeless, runaway, and trafficked young people, shows that about a quarter of the homeless youth surveyed had been victims of sexual exploitation, either because they were trafficked, or because they had engaged in survival sex or sexual labor.

Our 2013 study with Fordham University in New York City showed our young people there had suffered similar levels of exploitation. And half of the kids interviewed at our shelter said they could have avoided being commercially sexually exploited if they'd simply had a safe place to stay.

One critically important proposed amendment to the Justice for Victims of

Trafficking Act is the Runaway and Homeless Youth and Trafficking Prevention Act, which provides important resources for homeless young people, keeping them safe from exploitation.

There's only one silver lining to this deadlock: As more and more people hear about the trafficking bill, more will learn what trafficking is, how it hurts the most vulnerable among us, and how it is more likely to involve U.S.-born victims than those brought here from other countries. Yes, it is a problem in our own towns and cities, with our own teenagers — mostly girls — being trapped, repeatedly raped, kept away from their families and schools, and losing the chance to grow into the bright futures they deserve.

It is long past time for the Senate to set aside politics and protect the most vulnerable among us. Stranger things have happened. A similarly toxic political quagmire actually produced a terrific law in New York State last week, after two years of wrangling. The Trafficking Victims Protection and Justice Act, passed in Albany on March 16, increases penalties for trafficking, ensures that penalties for buying sex from a minor align with those for statutory rape, and allows trafficking victims to bring civil suits against their traffickers. It will also help inform law-enforcement officers on how to identify and help human trafficking victims.

If New York State's lawmakers, not known for getting along terribly well, can find a way forward together, I'm hopeful that our U.S. senators can, too. And they must. It is time for them to resolve their partisan differences and pass the Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act, which is crucial to the well-being and protection of our most vulnerable youth. The Senate's failure to reach an agreement is not the final word, and we look forward to working with lawmakers in both parties to find a constructive path forward to ensure justice, safety and protection for trafficked, homeless and runaway youth.

This article was published on March 27, 2015.

A New Orleans man who already stood accused of hitting a 17-year-old girl in the face with an aluminum baseball bat now faces charges that he was forcing the teenager to work for him as a prostitute in the French Quarter and online.

Lance Everson, 36, was accused Wednesday in an arrest warrant of trafficking a child for sexual purposes and pandering.

Authorities also booked Kayla Griffin, 21, who they said was working as a prostitute for Everson and tried to persuade the 17-year-old not to press charges after the incident with the baseball bat.

Officials say Everson and the victim — who turns 18 in June — were at his house in the 2800 block of Eagle Street in New Orleans on Oct. 28 when she told him she wanted to go home. He struck her in the face with the aluminum bat and refused to let her leave, telling her, “You’re mine. You know too much of my business,” according to police.

Eventually, New Orleans police arrived at the house and arrested Everson on counts of aggravated battery, false imprisonment with a dangerous weapon and possession with intent to distribute illegal drugs.

Griffin and another man later went to the 17-year-old’s daytime workplace and threatened her for reporting the incident, police said.

Griffin subsequently offered the teen $1,000 to drop the case against Everson, according to the arrest warrant, but she refused the money.

The warrant says an FBI agent and a State Police investigator interviewed the victim’s mother, who told them that her daughter had been working for Everson as a prostitute, a pickpocket and a “lookout” on Bourbon Street, which they referred to as “the track.”

The warrant says the 17-year-old told authorities that Everson sometimes acted violently toward her and that he provided her with alcohol, marijuana and unidentified pills to lessen her inhibitions. She said that when they weren’t working on Bourbon Street, they would respond to customers who reached them through ads on Backpage.com.

State Police said text messages on the victim’s cellphone captured Everson giving orders, telling the girl to “steal everything” from a customer or how much to charge others.

In one message cited in the warrant, the victim pleaded with Everson for better treatment. “I’m not asking you to be my ol’ man,” it reads. “It’s the fact that I don’t have nobody else.”

When Everson was arrested on the battery count, he was on probation stemming from a conviction on a federal weapons charge. He received a two-year prison sentence for the probation violation on March 12 and on Thursday was being detained in St. Tammany Parish, awaiting extradition to New Orleans.

Conviction on trafficking children for sexual purposes in Louisiana can carry a maximum fine of $50,000 and a prison term of between 15 and 50 years.

This article was published on March 28, 2015. It was written by Ramon Antonio Vargas. 

Covenant House is excited to share that it is a benefitting charity of proceeds from royalties generated from the sale of the new book, I’ll Give You Exactly Five Minutes!, written by Peter Danish.  I’ll Give You Exactly Five Minutes! provides guidance and recommendations for its readers in giving effective presentations. Funding received by Covenant House through this endeavor will support its mission to serve homeless and at-risk youth to move toward safe, stable, and loving places to achieve independent living and pursue their dreams.

"After decades working in the media where we tend to see only the saddest and most depressing stories, I wanted to do something different with this book,” said I’ll Give You Exactly Five Minutes! author Peter Danish.  “I wanted to use it to help spread the message of some of the wonderful human service organizations I know of and support.  I can think of no more worthy organization than Covenant House.  It's my sincere hope that folks who purchase the book will take the time to visit Covenant House's website and learn more about the wonderful work that they do, and to continue to support them!"

Mr. Danish’s generosity will help Covenant House care for homeless and runaway youth in 27 cities across six countries.  I’ll Give You Exactly Five Minutes! is currently being sold on Amazon.com (www.amazon.com) and Barnes & Noble.com (www.barnesandnoble.com) and in Barnes & Noble stores. 

Some 60 up-and-coming business and community leaders spent the night sleeping outside to raise awareness of youth homelessness and more than $200,000 for kids at Covenant House. 

Participants in the 2nd annual Covenant House Sleep Out: Next Generation, equipped with only sleeping bags and pieces of cardboard in wet, single-digit weather, got a small glimpse of the hardships youth can face on the street.

The four-member Onex Corporation team of directors and associate directors were the top fundraisers at more than $40,000.

“It is tremendously gratifying to see how our next generation of leaders is engaging with this event to support our youth and our agency,” says Bruce Rivers, Covenant House executive director. “This support is helping us to build a movement for our cause and give homeless youth the chance for better futures.” 

The money raised enables the agency to provide 94 youth with 23 days of shelter, food, clothing, counselling and the chance to turn their lives around. The low-cost experiential event sees 94 percent of proceeds going directly to help kids at Covenant House. 

Together with the agency’s hugely successful Executive Sleep Outs, about $2.5-million has been raised since 2012.

In the Picture: 

L to R: Covenant House Toronto Executive Director Bruce Rivers; Maria Orsini, executive vice president finance and administration, Cundari Group; Alan Hollingsworth, HUB International partner and practice team leader; David Armstrong, director, Onex Partners; and Kevin Ryan, Covenant House International president, at Covenant House’s Sleep Out: Next Generation.

On May 1st over 100 mothers from New York and New Jersey will sleep on the streets of Manhattan with a goal of raising $200,000 for the homeless youth at Covenant House. 

The Covenant House Mother’s Sleep Out is the latest in a growing movement to raise funds and awareness and to show homeless youth that they are not alone.  Previous Covenant House Sleep Outs with executives, young professionals, Broadway stars, and corporations have raised over $14.5 million in the United States and Canada in the last three years.

 Jennifer Enslin is looking forward to showing our kids she cares in this unique way.  So far she has rallied other moms from the area and raised over $50,000 for the May 1^st event.  

“I believe strongly in the work Covenant House does, which is to provide shelter, food, medical care, education, and most importantly love to thousands of youth, who would otherwise be living on the streets,” said Jennifer.  “Through volunteer work I have had many opportunities to spend time with the young people who call Covenant House their home.  I am always impressed by their tenacious drive and unwavering strength.  It’s an honor to do my small part to help them.”

This is the second annual Mom’s Sleep Out. This event follows in the path of a successful Young Professional Edition that raised over $450,000 in March.

“There are 2 million homeless kids in the United States in any given year, but they are largely invisible,” said Covenant House President Kevin Ryan.  “Homeless teenagers blend in, they couch-surf, they hide in the wide open.  They’re running from violence and abuse. Or a parent died. Or poverty crushed their families. Or drug addiction scalded their homes and they have no one left to look out for them.

“The moms participating in this Covenant House Sleep Out are sending a loud and clear message to homeless kids – that we stand with them in their struggles, and celebrate their courage, their resiliency, and their dreams for a better life. What a beautiful message to send as Mother’s Day approaches.”

Covenant House provides 24/7 crisis care and on-going support for homeless young people in need of a safe haven.  For more information about the Mother’s Sleep Out go to www.momssleeout.org.

Christian Gray climbed onto a stool that had been tied up with a hot pink bow and warned the Mary Kay lady: “I don’t know nothing about makeup.”

“All right,” Gray’s makeup artist, Donielle Lorelli, said. “Maybe something a little natural with a little blue.”

Gray, 20, had never really worn makeup before. Her mother never taught her to apply it, and her older sister doesn’t use the stuff. But on Saturday, Gray was one of about a dozen homeless women who got a free “I Love You Makeover.”

The event at Covenant House Washington, a center for homeless D.C. youth, was aimed at teaching the women to transform their lives inside and out. 

“We want you guys to feel beautiful and know that someone does love you,” event organizer Kamille Bundy told the women as they sat at bubble-gum-pink tables covered in a rainbow of powders, glosses and creams.

Bundy, the founder of Young Mothers Inc., brought the makeovers to Covenant House hoping to motivate and encourage young women to be both strong and beautiful. 

Bundy became a mom at 19 and struggled to become independent after her mother kicked her out of her home.

“I didn’t feel like I had anyone who was in my corner,” said Bundy, 26. “I can understand their struggle and what they’re going through. I want to empower them and to encourage them.”

Along with the makeovers, the event in Southeast Washington featured motivational speakers who gave the women tips on topics such as the importance of maintaining good credit and how to stretch a budget. One speaker was also once homeless herself. She talked about how she went from no home, no family and no degree to finally earning her bachelor’s degree after escaping an abusive relationship.

“Never give up hope,” she told them. “It’s a really good thing, and you should never lose a good thing.”

Gray listened to the speaker in between dabs of foundation and lip gloss. 

Gray wound up at a short-term emergency shelter for homeless youth offered through Covenant House in December after her sister kicked her out. 

Gray was getting bad grades and had little motivation.

But since getting the structure of a curfew and life tips from the programs at Covenant House, Gray said she has become more mature. She is starting to earn some B’s instead of all F’s. And she dreams of becoming a veterinarian or finding technology-focused work.

“I learned I have a future to live for, so I got to start doing things on my own,” Gray said as “honey spice” eye shadow swept across her eyelids. “I have to prepare myself for the future and better myself.”

Covenant House Washington works with hundreds of teens and young adults like Gray, said Madye Henson, the nonprofit group’s chief executive and president. 

Saturday was the second year in a row that Covenant House hosted Young Mothers Inc. to provide makeovers.

 “This is an opportunity to pamper those young people who have had little of that in their lives,” Henson said. “It is a day of caring.”

Those who seek Covenant House’s services are often “broken and need connections” to become more independent, Henson said. In 2014, Covenant House provided housing for 200 homeless youth, served 58,000 meals and assisted 350 people working toward GEDs.

 “It’s all about transforming them into being someone stronger and better,” Henson said. “This event is really symbolic of that.”

Gray’s friend Lorraine Day had just finished her makeover at the next table. Day, 19, landed at Safe Haven, a nonprofit, after she and her mother “had an altercation” and realized she needed to “get out and be independent.”

Day said she was grateful for Saturday’s event. Although Day said she felt she was “already pretty” before her makeover, seeing her new look in the mirror helped her gain confidence. The only other time she wore makeup was for the prom.

After Lorelli brushed sparkling lip gloss over Gray’s lips, she handed over a mirror.

“Oh my god!” Gray said as a big grin stretched across her face. “I’m glowing!”

Day ran over, and the two women checked each other out.

“Look at you!” Day cried.

“No, look at you!” Gray replied.

Then Gray and Day ran into the bathroom, inspecting their new faces in the mirror and snapping some selfies.

This article was published on April 25, 2015. It was written by Lynh Bui