Ready To Exert and Influence Greater Impact

Covenant House is poised to bring 50 years’ experience to bear to urge the societies where we work to greater awareness of the youth homelessness crisis and what it will take to ensure that every young person has a safe place to live and grow.

That was the message of Covenant House President and CEO Bill Bedrossian when he met for the first time since stepping into his new role with executive and national directors from across our movement this month in Washington, D.C. 

“We have an opportunity to produce hopefulness that young people can grab hold of,” Bill said. “Our size allows us to scale.”

Use Our Voice and Experience to Drive Real Change

Bill challenged the executive and national directors, saying, “Covenant House is at an incredible moment in history, serving thousands of youth every night. This gives us voice. If we bring that voice together in one movement, we can have influence. How do we raise our voice? How do we advocate? What does this mean in your communities?”

Over the course of our long history, Covenant House has become a recognized expert in reaching out to and caring for young people facing homelessness. But the need to drive solutions to the ever-deepening crisis of youth homelessness is urgent, Bill stressed.

“In the cities where we work, the minimum wage is not sufficient to allow our youth to be successful. At 21, they’re not able to live on their own on those wages,” he said. “We need to do more in workforce development. We need to develop housing models so that young people can have safe, stable housing when they leave us.”

Covenant House Leaders Advocate for Solutions to Homelessness, Trafficking

While in Washington, the executive and national directors, who oversee Covenant House’s work in 34 cities across six countries, met with more than 20 U.S. congressional staff, key federal department administrators, and representatives of humanitarian organizations and foundations to secure critical funds and update them on our work, issues, and solutions.

Our leaders also had the privilege of engaging with the Honorable Cindy Dyer, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. Ambassador Dyer gave them an overview of U.S. and global efforts to combat trafficking, and noted she shares our organization’s vision to include survivor leaders in the search for solutions. 

In separate conversations, executive directors detailed their advocacy efforts around a range of issues. Dr. Alie Redd said Covenant House Georgia is focused on advancing affordable housing and livable wages with benefits for youth. Alison Kear said Covenant House Alaska is partnering with the FBI and the Governor’s Council on Human and Sex Trafficking to protect youth from exploitation in her state.

Ami Rowland is interim CEO of Covenant House California and said her team is advocating for specific “set-asides” for youth in all state legislation dealing with homelessness. CHC is also advocating to raise the foster care age limit to 25 to help young adults manage a successful transition to independence. 

Covenant House Pennsylvania Executive Director Jen Weikert is adding a mental health lens to all of her advocacy plans, in-house programming, and staffing. “Just before the pandemic, we said 50% of our young people at CHPA face a mental health challenge; that’s now up to 87% — nearly 9 out of 10 of our youth are dealing with a mental health challenge. We can’t ignore this reality.”

Maximize Our Influence

Brenda Kumar, who is interim executive director at Covenant House Vancouver, may have spoken for all the executive and national directors at the Washington gathering when she said, “I think advocacy will be our biggest growth area over the next year. 

“We couldn’t do a lot of outreach during COVID, but now we’re meeting with elected officials, other policymakers, and organizations, like the Board of Trade. Also, through our Good Neighbor policy, we’re consciously seeking to make a positive impact on the local community,” Brenda said.

With pandemic restrictions receding, Covenant House is ready to map out bold new steps to make sure homelessness is rare, brief, and non-recurring  in the lives of the youth who come to us for support and for all young people. 

“We want to maximize our influence,” Bill said.