Our social justice poverty group visited the Covenant House and interviewed Alice Steigerwald, the volunteer coordinator and talked to her about Covenant
House and poverty in New York City in general. Covenant House is a
privately run organization with mostly individual donations and some
government funding. The Covenant house is a transitional housing unit
for children over the age of 15 and adults. They had several different
help programs including a vocational program, that taught homeless
youth how to dress for job interviews, how to be a certified
nurse and how to security based jobs. It gives them a place to get their
lives on track and gives them a social and family environment.

Even though Covenant House is privately run organization, they still receive government funding and have to follow most of the regulations of the state. They are not allowed to accept anyone under the age of 15 because they are still the responsibility of their guardian(s),  but they can be helped by child protective services. The Covenant House has an 18 month programs to help people get back on their feet, opposed to other government run organizations which can only have 30 day programs.

They showered us with many statistics like the average homeless teen form the age of 16-21 has a reading level of the 5th grade, and that ones education us directly correlated with their income. We will use this information in our teach in.

It was a really good meeting and I admire the work of the Covenant House.

Our group in front of a car from the Covenant House