'I am grateful that every resident is okay.'

It began as a typical morning at Covenant House New York.

There were 119 young people sleeping, eating breakfast, getting ready for work or school, and planning their day with our dedicated staff.

And then a loud crash and the smell of fire.

In news that quickly spread across the country, a construction crane carrying 16 tons of concrete caught fire and collapsed above our Covenant House shelter on 41st and 10th Avenue.

Miraculously, the crane did not hit our facility and none of our youth and staff were injured. But with the crane dangling dangerously above, our security team quickly jumped into action, assessing the situation and safely evacuating all of our youth and staff to a park nearby.

Once our youth were safe, our staff began the effort of finding temporary shelter from the 90-degree heat for 119 young people.

Our friends a few blocks away at the All Stars Project, a national nonprofit that helps tens of thousands of inner-city youth and their families create success in their lives, immediately offered a safe space for us in their facility.

Once there, we began contacting city partners, agencies, elected officials, and our Covenant House sites in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington, DC.

The goal was, and always is, to limit the amount of disruption in each young person’s journey, so it was important that we found not only a safe place to sleep for all 119 youth, but that it also provided them the extra support they need for mental health or Spanish language services or a convenient location to their place of employment.

By 9:00 pm, every young person was safely relocated to temporary accommodations offered by providers in the Runaway and Homeless Youth (RHY) network in New York City, while others were relocated to Covenant House facilities in the Bronx and at Covenant House New Jersey.

"Times of crisis are times that show what a community is really made of, and we were reminded today that the Covenant House community is built strong,” said Covenant House Interim Executive Director Dr. Shakeema North. “I am grateful for how our volunteers, corporate partners, and staff across the federation, stepped in to ensure that each of the 119 youth that slept in one of our crisis shelter beds last night were safe, first and foremost, had a warm meal, and that their immediate physical and mental health needs were addressed. While this is a crisis situation for sure, the way our community stepped in was nothing short of amazing.”

So many community partners have stepped up for our young people. In addition to All Stars Project, La Promesa, as part of the Acacia Network, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, and the New York Yankees were instrumental in providing safe shelter and funding for our youth. And with no access to our Covenant House New York cafeteria, Chick-fil-a, TAO, Rethink Food, Blaze Pizza (thank you Ben Grizzle!), Beastro, the Coalition for the Homeless and Starbucks all made sure our young people, staff and volunteers have had food and drink throughout the crisis.

Even with all the support we’ve received, this crisis continues to bring many financial challenges. New funding is needed for transportation to and from temporary shelters and overnight accommodations for emergency staff coverage. We need to pay for water, food, toiletries, hygiene products, medication and first aid supplies, clothes and temporary shelter needs like cots, linens, pillows, and towels. All things our youth no longer had access to when we were forced to evacuate.

“At a time like this, supporting our youths' mental health is also a top priority,” said Hadley Cronk, assistant director of mental health programming. “We have our mental health professionals on site to make these next steps as smooth as possible. All of our staff are trained to manage crises, so while today was a terrible event, we feel confident that our youth will come out unscathed.”

As usual, when speaking about the crisis and the upheaval in their lives, our young people said it best.

“It was a scary feeling at first because I did not know what was going on,” said Ziari. “But I’m glad that Covenant House looked out and gave us food, water, and found us shelter to stay for the night. However, I wish we could stay in our building.”

“I am grateful that every resident is okay,” added Alex.

To support our young people at Covenant House during this crisis, go to Crane Emergency Fund .