COVENANT HOUSE WASHINGTON DC
This organization has already been registered
Someone in your organization has already registered and setup an account. would you like to join their team?Profile owner : e*******s@c**c.o*g
Mission Statement
Covenant House Washington’s mission is to empower, safeguard and serve homeless, disconnected, and exploited young people in the Greater Washington region with housing, education, wrap-around support services, workforce readiness training and job placement support to help them get back and stay on track. Founded in 1995, Covenant House Washington (CHW) is an independent 501 (c) (3) affiliate of Covenant House International, the nation’s largest nonprofit organization responding to the needs of young people suffering from homelessness, disconnection and exploitation. The past 23 years, CHW has served as a lifeline for more than 50,000 youth, between the ages of 18 and 24, across Greater Washington. Our purpose is to safeguard young people from the street and dangerous living situations and to equip them with skills and support to transition into adulthood with stability.
About This Cause
CHGW began serving homeless young people from a storefront in Ward 8, Southeast Washington, D.C. in 1995. Today, we have grown significantly and expanded our programs and services to include not only housing but also wrap-around supportive services carried out by 77 dedicated staff members. Assisting homeless and disconnected young people towards self-sufficiency requires going beyond providing decent, safe and affordable housing. CHGW therefore offers an array of comprehensive programs and wrap-around supportive services. Our holistic approach is to provide and sustain a platform that gives these young people the opportunity to become self-sustaining adults and active members in our communities. CHGW serves over 70,000 meals annually; provides emergency and transitional housing to nearly 145 youth and their children nightly; over 360 youth are provided Career Pathways support through GED/ABE education, workforce readiness training and job placement; and a NAEYC nationally accredited Child Development Center is housed at CHGW’s SE location. Last year, CHGW sent 31 young people – all first generation entrants of their families – off to college and 80% of the youth that transitioned from our transitional housing moved on to stable housing. CHGW, in partnership with the Department of Human Services, Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services and continuation of the Mayor’s Solid Foundations DC: Strategic Plan to Prevent and End Homelessness opened CHGW’s Overnight Respite Center, The Sanctuary – providing youth with 10+ emergency overnight beds – to extend our continuum of care. Case management is an essential component of our residential and educational programming. CHGW’s case managers work with young people to identify their strengths and challenges and then develop and implement individual success plans. We also partner with other providers and government agencies when and as needed. Covenant House Washington’s population includes, predominantly, low-income African-American, homeless, disconnected, exploited and out-of-school youth, with a concentrate presence from the East of River neighborhoods in wards 7 and 8. Our targeted youth population live primarily in these communities, which are challenged by critical issues such as high school dropouts, youth idleness, unemployment and lack of both quality jobs and economic opportunities, and a host of other social ills. In 2016, the poverty rate in Ward 8 was 36.8% compared to the city-wide average of 17.9%. Similarly, the Ward 8 unemployment rate was 13.3% compared to the city average of 6.4%. In addition, more than 15% of the community parents have not received a high school diploma and almost 100% of our youths live below the federal poverty guidelines. Hence, these young people are often not given the support or opportunity to gain life skills necessary for the transition into adulthood. CHGW’s overarching goal is to help these underprivileged youth achieve stability and function as productive members of society. This requires not only providing them with shelter, food, education, clothing and other wrap-around services but also equipping them with tools and habits that will ultimately help them achieve stability. CHGW thus often assesses its programs and incorporate additional items, as feasible, to better help youth navigate the challenges preventing them from reaching stability in our ever-changing world. In light of the situation described above, fostering financial management skills to enable our youth achieve financial sustainability is a needed intervention as many lack the necessary resources for money management education and this impede their chances for normal life skills development. Covenant House is the nation’s largest nonprofit organization responding to the needs of homeless, disconnected and exploited youth. Covenant House provides direct assistance to youth in the form of shelter, food, clothing, education and vocational training, counseling and other services as defined by individual needs. In today’s society, where an increasing number of youth who are hardly more than children themselves bear and raise infants of their own, Covenant’s House goal is to focus public and community attention and resources on critical needs in order to help the many young people who experience significant difficulty in leading “normal” lives. In 1995, Covenant House Greater Washington determined that significant needs existed in Washington, DC, and fashioned a program that uniquely – but not solely - responds to the needs of children and youth in the communities of Anacostia Heights and Congress. Comprising of large portions of Wards 6 and 8, these neighborhoods experienced profound problems. Large pockets of public housing were accompanied by severe poverty, crime and as host of social ills. An increasing number of youth were conditionally housed; the stability of their housing was in jeopardy due to behavioral, attitudinal or other issues, which must be resolved. Rates of unemployment, teen idleness, high school dropouts and teen pregnancy had skyrocketed, etc. Amid such a situation, a sense of despair permeated almost every facet of residents’ lives. Covenant House Greater Washington was created to provide innovative solutions needed to bring a sense of stability, success and accomplishment to lives which otherwise would have been wasted. Since its inception, Covenant House Greater Washington has developed a comprehensive response to the needs of at-risk youth in the Greater Washington region by establishing programs that address a variety of problems identified by community leaders as described above. We continue to work tirelessly to become an integral part of the communities we serve by choosing to invest in the future of all community residents. CHGW has never lost sight of the fact that many youth cannot remain with their families, or have no family they can turn in times of crisis. For these youth, our vision has been to develop strong residential programs that could provide a warm, nurturing environment where abused and neglected youth would find unconditional love and acceptance as they work to reconnect with their families or make transition to independent living. We have made and continue to make great strides in protecting the right of young people, fighting for these rights, and speaking for those who have no voice of their own. Needless to say, without CHGW and the programs and services it offers to homeless, disconnected and exploited youth, there will be a terrible void in the region. Homeless, disconnected and exploited youth have rights. They have the right to a home, food, guidance and education; the right to be free from sexual, emotional, or physical abuse; and the right to be free from exploitation. These youth have the right to be safe and – most important – to be loved. All these elements are essential and will lead youth to stability – in a broad term. Hence, Covenant House Greater Washington celebrates every milestone reached by youth – individually - in achieving stability. Every time that youth obtain their credentials or complete their education; land jobs, reduce or pay off their debt; become savvy in financial and budget management; when they are removed from the street and other dangerous living situations and are brought to a safe place; when they change their way of lives or when we sent them to college is considered a success at Covenant House Greater Washington.