W.B.'s Story: Overcoming More Than Homelessness

Before W.B. could build a career, he needed somewhere safe to sleep.

At 19, he had two weeks to find a new place to live. “I was told I had two weeks to find a new place. I tried to ask my parents if I could live with them, and they refused to let me stay.”

Like many young people who come to Covenant House, W.B. had grown up in a home that was physically, emotionally, and mentally abusive, and returning felt like his only option, even as it put him at risk again.

So he left in the middle of the night on an electric bike, riding from Camden, New Jersey, to Philadelphia. A tire began to fail along the way but W.B., teetering on the edge of determination and apathy, said to himself "I have to leave. If I die, I die."

A friend told him about Covenant House Pennsylvania (CHPA). When he called that first night, there wasn't a bed available. He went back to the place he had two weeks left in, trying to make it through until morning. At 7 a.m., the phone rang: "We have a bed for you. How soon can you get here?" He was on the train within fifteen minutes.

That bed, and the meal that came with it, changed the trajectory of everything that followed.

"I remember saying to myself, this is the first time in years I've been able to eat a second serving," W.B. said. "It was the first time in years I was able to eat until I was full. Then I slept peacefully, like a baby."

Safety and stability came first. Only once those needs were met could W.B. turn his attention to what came next: figuring out a future.

Working with his case managers at CHPA, W.B., an avid learner, started exploring career pathways that matched his interests. Staff introduced him to the Google IT Support Professional Certificate program, an accessible training that helps young people build in-demand technology skills. It was a strong fit. He learned to design websites, manage inventory, and set up dozens of computers and monitors.

"This type of work comes easy to me," he said.

His progress caught the attention of two CHPA board members, who helped fund additional certification courses and connected him with a six-month internship at Seer Interactive, where he now works hands-on in the technology field.

"I love my internship!" he said. "Every day I ask, 'Is there any more fun things for me to do today?'"

W.B.'s stability has grown alongside his career. He moved from CHPA's shelter into transitional living, and after saving his earnings, he adopted a cat named Omar, an emotional support animal rescued from the very kind of home W.B. once fled. He describes what stability means to him now: a door that locks, a full fridge, a stove to cook on, a bed of his own.

This spring, W.B. will graduate from college.

None of it, he'll say, could have started without that first phone call, and that first bed.

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Read more: 'If I Die, I Die': Overcoming More Than Homelessness