- Hi, everybody, I'm excited because I'm at Covenant House,
and I've traveled the country,
which you all know 'cause I'm on a road-trip,
this one for Virgin Mobile and Sevenly.
But every time I walk into a Covenant House,
it just, and I don't mean this in kind of any spooky way,
but there's just this calming spirit,
in every Covenant House,
it just makes me feel like I'm at home,
I love all you guys!
- Good, that's awesome.
- So here we are in St. Louis,
and this is Sue Wagner.
- Yes.
- And you're the Executive Director
of the St. Louis Covenant House.
- Covenant House Missouri, right.
- Okay, could you first, tell us
a little bit about Covenant House,
'cause as far as I know,
and I'm pretty sure that Covenant House
is the only national youth provider.
A provider of homeless youth. - Provider of homeless youth.
- Or helping homeless youth on a national basis.
- Right.
- So, Covenant House International,
we are an agency, one of their sites.
So there's 21 sites across six countries,
we have two in Canada, four down in kind of,
South America, Central America,
and the rest are in the United States.
We work with kids who are 16 to 21,
who are not in the foster care system,
who are either homeless or at risk for being homeless.
- And how long have you been doing this?
- Eight years this fall.
- One of the signs, when you walk into a place,
I mean, everybody,
I was just out on outreach, and the woman driving the van,
or the truck was 13 years.
I mean, longevity in social services,
- Right.
- You know, if people stay, is a good sign.
- Right.
- What are you seeing in homeless,
I mean homelessness, the face of homelessness in itself
has changed - Right.
- Over the last few years,
what have you seen in homeless youth,
here in Missouri or maybe even nationwide?
- Well, first, homeless youth,
youth are homeless because of family dysfunction,
so that's the number one reason our youth,
that we see here in St. Louis are homeless.
So that means either their families
have some kind of substance abuse issue,
or mental health issue,
and our youth have either ran away because
they feel like life on the street is better
than what they're enduring at home.
Some of our kids have been abused or neglected at home,
so this is an opportunity for them
to kind of change the course of their life.
- Now, what kind of services do you provide?
I mean, this is an amazingly huge building.
- Yeah, so we have two residential programs,
a shorter-term residential stay,
where youth can stay up to 45 days,
and then a longer-term,
what we call Transitional Living Program,
that youth can live in our apartments up to two years.
And then we have a host of support services,
so we do street outreach,
which you went on this morning,
and we do safe outreach,
where we go into schools and community centers
and talk to kids about calling us
before they make a decision to just run away
and be on the street, and in danger.
Then we also have employment program,
GED and literacy services.
We do counseling with our youth,
and we also offer counseling to the family members,
and we have a gym across the street,
where we do recreational services for the kids,
and we partner with a clinic
that provides our medical services, as well.
- Gosh, there's so many things that I just love
about Covenant House, I mean,
- Thank you.
- I was just in the cafeteria,
and you know, probably a big portion of the kids
are in school right now.
- Right, right.
- So the few that are probably 18 plus
were downstairs grabbing a meal,
and it didn't seem like a youth shelter.
- Good, good.
- You know what I mean? Right, right.
- And that's what I meant, it really didn't.
It seemed like a family.
- Right.
- And I don't mean, you know, gosh,
I just met you,
I'm not, you know, - Right [Laughing]
- This is not a paid endorsement,
I just really, really love Covenant House.
So I'm doing this road trip, - Okay.
- And there's no way that I could do a national road trip
on homeless youth,
I've been talking about S.A.F.E. Place,
'cause I love S.A.F.E. Place, too,
without bringing Covenant House into the story.
- Yeah.
- Because you're just an amazing organization.
Now, how, I know Kevin talks a lot about this,
Kevin's the CEO,
one of these days, Kevin,
me and you, interview, it's gonna happen.
(laughing)
- The human trafficking of homeless youth,
- Mm-hmm.
- Are you seeing a lot of that?
- We partner with an agency here in St. Louis
that actually handles that,
so in St. Louis, we, I'm not as versed on speaking
about that as some of our - Got it.
- Other sites, you know, down in Florida
and Texas, and up in New York, - Right.
- They definitely are far more involved than we are
here in St. Louis. - Got it.
- Is there anything else that you'd like
people to know about Covenant House,
or Covenant House, Missouri?
- Just our kids, our kids are amazing,
I mean, they come from situations where there's
absolutely no hope and no reason,
they've been beaten down,
and they come here and eventually,
they start building those relationships.
Our staff are oftentimes viewed as family members
that are caring, asking what they're doing
with their life,
and then you see them get their GED,
or they graduate from high school.
Some of them have gone on to college,
some have gone into the military.
I mean, they just do these amazing things,
that, with just a little bit of support
and love, and nurturance,
that they're able to do that,
and they have this huge amount of potential
that I think a lot of people think,
"Oh, a homeless teen, why bother?"
Kind of thing, and that's just so not the case.
- Or, they blame the kid.
- Exactly. It's their fault that they're homeless,
or it's their fault, and it's not,
I mean, like I said in the very beginning,
family dysfunction's the number one reason.
- Right.
One of the things you said, that,
you know, staff often acts as family.
- Right.
I was happen to witness,
being out on outreach today,
a wonderful woman who was driving the truck,
and I - Tawanda or Freedom, maybe,
one of them. - Tawanda.
- And there's a street youth,
- Okay.
- And the interaction was so perfect,
and it was so motherly, maybe even grandmotherly,
(laughing)
You know what I mean?
- I won't tell her you said that.
Because grandmothers are usually more,
- Right.
- You know what I mean? Right, right.
- A little more firm, Yeah. Right.
- Nurturing, They're not gonna take
- The lies, they're gonna tell you like it is.
- Right, right.
- It was just, oh, I was in the backseat,
and I'm going aw, this is so awesome.
- Yeah, well, so many of our staff,
we have staff who are really like that,
they're very, you know, they're nurturing
and very strict all at the same time,
and they serve that to the youth,
and they respond so well to that,
I really think it's why so many of our kids
are so successful.
- So, if you happen to be in a Covenant House city,
look it up, there will be a link
underneath this video,
and support them.
I really believe that you need to support
the local, your local homeless services,
and we need to take care of our youth.
And I can, oh, my gosh, I highly recommend
what they're doing. - Well, thank you.
- Throughout the country
and everything else.
- Thank you.
It's really worth the investment of time
and resources. - It is.
- And thanks to Sevenly, and Virgin Mobile
for having me,
and once again, Kevin, we're gonna do this interview.
(laughing)
I've been chasing you for a year,
so one of these days.
(laughing)
- Thank you, everybody.
- Thank you.