COMING TOGETHER
A SHELTER FROM THE STORM by Kevin Ryan
Shelter at home means one thing when you have a home. But what does it mean when you have no home, especially when you’re a young person on your own, unsure where to sleep, eat, or find refuge from the pandemic? That is the question we face at Covenant House, where we help children and youth experiencing homelessness in 31 cities across six countries as COVID-19 loots all our lives relentlessly. Today, we are filled with over 2,000 infants, children, and youth who have no other place to call home. Like nearly everywhere else on earth, the virus has hit us and infected some of our kids and staff. 14
We have converted offices, conference rooms, and drop-in centers into isolation units at each of our houses to care for sick and symptomatic youth. In Anchorage, Alaska, for example, we converted one of our transitional homes into a quarantine residence for young people who test positive or show signs of the virus. In Houston, we refashioned the dropin center into isolation bedrooms. In New York City, just outside the Lincoln Tunnel, our executive director Sister Nancy Downing and our team converted their offices into bedrooms, where we now provide care to sick children and youth in one of the hardest-hit parts of the nation.
RIPON FORUM May 2020
