Your Top 10 Covenant House Stories of 2025 

The stories we tell through this blog space at Covenant House are as varied as our community of youth, staff, and supporters. Each week, our blogs offer a glimpse into a young person’s journey from homelessness to hope or into the inner workings of our mission. We hope all of them will resonate with you in some way, but we know some are particularly meaningful. Here is a list of the Top 10 stories that interested you the most in 2025.

10. Human Trafficking Attempt Interrupted

This story originally ran in 2022, but you were still clicking on it in 2025 — and with good reason. It tells the courageous story of our outreach team and how they intervened just in time to help a young woman who'd fallen prey to human traffickers in Atlanta. Our Covenant House Georgia team confronted the trafficker, brought Cindi to our house, and sheltered her and cared for her until we could safely reunite her with her loving mother.

9. Be an Angel Day: Spread Kindness and Compassion

Last August, you responded to this blog’s call to “be an angel” and support young people overcoming homelessness at Covenant House. Be an Angel Day was established more than 30 years ago to encourage acts of kindness and compassion toward others. In response to the invitation, you sent messages to our youth, donated to Covenant House, and spread the word so others could join you in these acts of empathy and love.

8. Affordable-for-Youth Housing — The First Step in Ending Youth Homelessness

In 2025, we introduced you to a key component of our strategic vision to end youth homelessness as we know it: affordable-for-youth housing. In this piece, we described how access to housing that youth can afford on their entry-level or minimum-wage salaries is critical to their success as they seek to build stability and independence. Our program allows them to do so, knowing they will not pay more than one-third of their salaries, whatever these may be, in our affordable-for-youth housing units.

7. Rewriting History: David’s Path to Possibility

Like the city of his birth, Chicago, David’s journey was bustling with energy one minute, buffeted by chilling winds the next. After the deaths of both his parents, David navigated homelessness by hustling, surviving, and, as he puts it, “figuring things out.” After a stint in jail, David decided he wanted a different life. He turned to Covenant House Illinois, where he found not only hope but a path forward through our job training program. You were intrigued with how he began to write a new story for himself, one based on stability and peace.

6. Paying It Forward

Molly Bates is a Covenant House alum, a former resident who, supported by the unconditional love she received at Covenant House, is making it on her own as a published author, entrepreneur, and mother. Molly was sexually abused as a child and adolescent. She finally fled her family home and came to Covenant House. Instantly, she says, “I could feel the love.” Today, Molly proudly shares the lessons she learned, something that captured your imagination. She encourages anyone going through difficult times to “keep pushing, keep being positive and look at the fruits of your efforts.” Some of you may recognize Molly as a spokesperson in the Covenant House commercial!

5. Sleep Out Offers a Night of Conversation and Connection

Last year, you helped us mark 15 years since the start of Covenant House’s Sleep Out movement. This blog showcased both the difference every Sleep Out makes for our youth and the various reasons supporters sign up to spend a night on the pavement and raise funds and awareness for Covenant House. The Good Newsers are a group of childhood friends who decided to Sleep Out to make their mothers proud! Others participated to make a difference or to give back. Whatever the reason, we hope to see them all back this year!

4. Out of Sight, Out of Mind: A Nonsolution to the Homelessness Crisis in Florida

The 2024 Johnson vs. Grants Pass Supreme Court decision opened the way for states to enact laws regulating homelessness that are quick to remove homeless youth, adults, and families from public view but fall short as solutions to the root causes of homelessness. In Florida, homeless individuals, including children, can now be shuttled into encampments.But, as Covenant House Florida CEO Reneé Trincanello points out, “Municipalities don’t have the bandwidth, they don’t have the money, they don’t have the location, and they don’t have the working knowledge of the homeless population.” You were interested to know that Covenant House has a plan to end youth homelessness as we know it today.

3. A Lifeline in the Cold: How a Blanket Gave Trevon Hope Through the Winter

Your hearts were moved by Trevon’s story. He became homeless at just 12 years old, when his grandmother was no longer able to care for him. For the next unthinkable 10 years, Trevon slept in alleys, cars, anywhere he could find refuge. All he carried with him was a bag of clothes and a single, warm, white blanket his grandmother packed for him. At 22, he made his way to Covenant House Greater Washington. There, he said, “I found more than a roof over my head. I found people who saw me, who believed in me, and who gave me the resources to rebuild my life.”

2. Parenthood: Services for Young Families Across the Federation

Cherish came to Covenant House Alaska at age 18, already a mother to a newborn baby girl. She was guarded and street smart, and intensely protective of her child. Her early life had been filled with instability and trauma. But at Covenant house, Cherish began to let down her guard and to trust those who offered her unconditional love and relentless support. She enrolled in a high school program and began to dream of a culinary career. You were keen to learn how at Covenant House sites across our federation, young parents like Cherish find shelter and so much more: safety, dignity, and opportunity.

1. Spiritual Services Across the Federation

In 2025, the blog post that most piqued your interest was about Covenant House’s respect for the spiritual journeys of our youth. Many of you already know that Covenant House traces its roots to the social justice traditions of the Roman Catholic faith; today, however, we receive virtually no funding from the Catholic Church. We welcome all young people, whatever their beliefs. Our houses provide safe spaces for them to practice their faith as they choose, but no faith practice is mandated. Pastoral ministers of different faiths and denominations offer voluntary worship services and supervise programs that encourage dialogue about religious and spiritual growth. Faith — like all essential decisions in the journeys of our youth — is their choice.

For more stories about our mission to end youth homelessness, the young people at the heart of our work, and the impact of your support, sign up for our newsletter today