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Book Review

Review of the book Almost Home: Helping Kids Move From Homelessness to Hope

The review should be approximately 350 words long and must include the following:

*The overall impression of the book--include specific details of the aspects liked and disliked and why. (Must point out the specific events from the story)

*How you see/or do not see this book relating to the readings of National Health Care for the Homeless Council (2016)? Be specific citing research and data from the reading. (Important: Be sure to use specific examples of the stories in the book to illustrate the data and research reported in the reading.

*Explore for 2 related Internet sites (not papers-they must be for groups or organizations that work on this topic!). Indicate which sites you investigated and how they relate to this topic and the book.

Almost Home Helping Kids Move from

Homelessness to Hope

kevin ryan and tina kelley

John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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Dedicated to the young people who struggle on the streets, and the loving adults who lift them up

The book is printed on acid-free paper.

Copyright © 2012 by Covenant House. All rights reserved Interior photos: © Timothy Ivy

The lines from “The Opening of Eyes,” from Songs for Coming Home, by David Whyte, are printed with permission from Many Rivers Press, http://www.davidwhyte.com, © Many Rivers Press, Langley, Washington.

Cover image: © Jan Sonnenmair

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey Published simultaneously in Canada

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976 United States Copyright Act, without either the prior written permission of the Publisher, or authorization through payment of the appropriate per-copy fee to the Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Danvers, MA 01923, (978) 750-8400, fax (978) 646-8600, or on the web at www.copyright.com. Requests to the Publisher for permission should be addressed to the Permissions Department, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, (201) 748-6011, fax (201) 748-6008, or online at http:// www.wiley.com/go/permissions.

Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty: While the publisher and the author have used their best efforts in preparing this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accu- racy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifi cally disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fi tness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales representatives or written sales materials. The advice and strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a professional where appropriate. Neither the publisher nor the author shall be liable for any loss of profi t or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Ryan, Kevin. Almost home : helping kids move from homelessness to hope / Kevin Ryan and Tina Kelley. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-1-118-23047-3 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-28698-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-28295-3 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-28403-2 ( ebk) 1. Homeless children—United States. 2. Homeless youth—United States. 3. Homeless children—Canada. 4. Homeless youth—Canada. I. Kelley, Tina. II. Title. HV4505.R798 2012 362.77’56920820973—dc23

2012017212

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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iii

Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Foreword by Cory Booker xi

Preface: Years to Understand the Light by Kevin Ryan xvii

Preface: Help and the Homing Instinct by Tina Kelley xxiii

Introduction 1

1 A Son Walks Alone: Paulie’s Story 12

Arriving at Covenant House 21

The Costs of Not Caring 39

Homeless, but Graduating 42

2 A Survivor Facing Her Future: Muriel’s Story 46

Arriving at Covenant House 56

Helping Traffi cking Victims, Holding Exploiters Accountable 62

Fighting Back on Many Fronts 67

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iv C O N T E N T S

3 Moving Forward after Foster Care: Benjamin’s Story 72

Memories of Mistreatment 77

Working toward Mental Health 83

Arriving at Covenant House 88

Fixing Foster Care 107

4 A Homeless Teen Mother Reaching for a New Life: Creionna’s Story 115

Homelessness in New Orleans 120

Arriving at Covenant House 126

Help for Young Parents 138

5 A Teenager with Nowhere to Go and His Mentor: Keith’s and Jim’s Stories 153

Arriving at Covenant House 167

Keith’s Thoughts on the Meaning of a Mentor 171

Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg on Fostering Resilience through Mentoring 176

The Power of a Presence 178

6 Searching for Safety: Meagan’s Story 182

Arriving at Covenant House 191

Meagan on Her Moms and Her Future 197

Helping LGBTQ Youth 199

7 Separate Paths Uniting: Paulie Revisited 201

The Death of Decal 206

8 What You Can Do: Steps to Help Homeless Young People Thrive 210

Mentoring 210

Anti-Traffi cking Efforts 211

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C O N T E N T S v

Supporting LGBTQ Youth 212

Advocacy Work 213

In the Community 214

What You Can Do from Your Computer 216

On the Home Front 216

Keep Us Posted 217

To Learn More 217

Epilogue 219

Notes 221

Index 224

Photo gallery begins on page 143.

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vii

Acknowledgments

We could never have written this book without the openness and generosity of the six young people who told us their life stories. They spent hundreds of hours walking and talking with us for much of the past three years, and we are deeply grateful. Their stories would have been far different without the devotion and dedication of the men and women who cared for them and about them, day in and day out, including the counselors and other staff members of Covenant House who also shared their time and insights with us.

We heard in the voices of so many kids a burgeoning hope that is the legacy of Sister Mary Rose McGeady, D.C., and Jim Harnett, who spent most of their lives fi ghting for homeless and forgotten young people. They kept company with those who lit the way forward as stewards of this movement to end the exploitation and suffering of young people, including Dorothy McGuinness, Joan Lambert, Bob Cardany, Bruce Henry, Sister Tricia Cruise, Pat Connors, Priscilla and Dick Marconi, Bill and Peggy Montgoris, L. Edward and Irene Shaw, Ralph and Jane Pfeiffer, Dick and Priscilla Schmeelk, Brian D. McAuley, and Denis P. Coleman.

We hold great esteem for men and women across Canada and the United States who devote part of their lives to loving other people’s children and giving them alternatives to street life. This is

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viii A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

especially true for the Covenant House staff, who do diffi cult and incredible work, every day of the year.

Our agent, Andrew Blauner, one of our fi rst and most impor- tant yay-sayers, buoyed us when we needed it, and Tom Miller, our editor at Wiley, believed in this project in a way that touched us deeply. We are beyond grateful to them. C. Allen Parker, Esq., Paul Saunders, Esq., Stuart Gold, Esq., and their colleagues at Cravath, Swaine & Moore, and the constant, patient, and wise John Ducoff, Esq., provided us expert legal advice and were advocates of the fi rst order for our work. Liz Lewis, Jayne Bigelsen, Mary Ann Simulinas, Elisabeth Lean, Molly Ladd, and the Covenant House Institute provided research assistance; Patrice Ingra juggled sched- ules with inimitable good humor; and it’s safe to say we were each blessed with a coauthor of great good cheer and endurance.

We are deeply indebted to the experts who shared their origi- nal research and wisdom with us, from across two countries, including those who are mentioned in these pages and so many others—experts in the kids we write about; experts in the care of the mind, the heart, and the spirit; and experts in wise policies for the benefi t of young people. Thanks for your insights and for helping us reach the conclusions we did.

Across Canada and the United States, Covenant House executive directors opened our eyes to the suffering of homeless young people in their states and provinces, and we are thankful to each of them: Allison Ashe in Georgia, Dan Brannen in the District of Columbia, Ruth daCosta and Bruce Rivers in Toronto, Deirdre Cronin in Alaska, Jim Gress in Florida, Cordella Hill in Pennsylvania, Sam Joseph in Michigan, Jim Kelly in Louisiana, Jerry Kilbane and Jim White in New York, George Lozano in California, Ronda G. Robinson in Texas, Jill Rottmann in New Jersey, Krista Thompson in Vancouver, and Sue Wagener in Missouri.

We developed an abiding esteem for the great human rights activists who inspired us in their fi ght against child traffi cking, including Menin Capellin, Carolina Escobar Sarti, Maria Jose

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A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S ix

Arguello, Sofi a Almazan, Hugh Organ Sr., Nancy Brown, Norma Ramos, Andrea Powell, and Rachel Lloyd.

Thanks to Tyler Perry, Jon Bon Jovi, Natalie Grant, and Laura Bush, who helped us over the last three years to reach so many more kids, and to Cory Booker for his passion and vision.

We are grateful to our friend Jim Burke, who generously gave us a peaceful place to write and meet in the summer of 2011, and to the talented and good-humored Timothy Ivy, whose photo- graphs reveal the heart and power of the special young people of Covenant House in New York.

We are thankful to the board of Covenant House International: Phil Andryc, Barbara P. Bush, Andrew P. Bustillo, John F. Byren, Brian M. Cashman, Paul A. Danforth, Mark J. Hennessy, Capathia Y. Jenkins, Tracy S. Jones-Walker, Drew A. Katz, Janet M. Keating, Thomas M. McGee, Brian T. “BT” McNicholl, Anne M. Milgram, Karla Mosley, Liz Murray, John C. Pescatore, Brother Raymond Sobocinski, Thomas D. Woods, and Strauss Zelnick. And to the board members of Covenant Houses across Canada and the United States, thank you for your dedication to creating opportu- nities for children and youth.

To the millions of special people who have contributed to the Covenant House movement, believing that every young person deserves the opportunity to shine, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, thank you. Huge thanks to our Broadway friends for inspiring us with their time, talent, and dedication to homeless young people, especially the multitalented Neil Berg and Rita Harvey, John Asselta, Dan Walker, Carter Calvert and Roger Cohen, Lawrence Clayton, Natalie Toro, Rob Evan, Danny Zolli, Ron Bohmer and Sandra Joseph, Craig Schulman, Al Greene, and our beloved Capathia.

We thank our friends and family who provided invalu- able feedback, guidance, and moral support: Liz Alanis, Molly Armstrong, Neela Banerjee, Lynn and Tom Benediktsson, Elaine Bennett, Abraham Bergman, Alison Brosnan, Lou Carlozo, Lisa Chang, Eileen Crummy, Meredith Fabian, Dan Froomkin, Scott

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x A C K N O W L E D G M E N T S

Hamilton, Peggy Healy ( abrazos ), Tom Kennedy, Taisha Kullman, Carlette Mack, Frith Maier, Rylee Maloles, Tom Manning, Dan McCarthy, Peggy McHale, Diane Milan, Robin Nagle, Barbara, Jerry, and Livia Newman, John O’Brien, Karl Pettijohn, Jeanne Pinder, Susan Plum (our tireless friend and reader), Ruben Porras, Tom Potenza, Susan Rabiner, Lee Roberts, Vera Roche, Tim Ryan, Emily Schifrin, Lauren Simonds, Lisa Taylor, Joan Smyth, Ruth Warner, Laura Weinberg, Richard Wexler—and Jill, Joan, and John again, for their many readings and generous input. We know both Ann Hoelle and Frank Kelley were there in spirit throughout.

To people who extended their hospitality during our travels, deep gratitude: Deirdre and Rob Cronin, Alison Kear, Mike Mills, Kevin Kerr, Roberta Degenhardt, Owen Ryan and Trevor McLaren, Al Gough and Beth Corets, Bill and Peggy Roe, Fred Weil and Kayo, Rio and Kento, Diane and Reilly Gillette, and Neela, and Karl again.

To the Ryans: Clare, Dan, Liam, John, Nora, Maggie, and Maeve; home will always be wherever you are. Thanks for happily mak- ing the Covenant House movement so much a part of our life. A special smile for Maeve for keeping it real when relaying exactly what the breeze says to the trees on a winding river in Westport. To Jim and Eileen Ryan, whose big shoulders and bigger hearts carried their sons, and to my brothers, much love, always. And a special thanks to Ellie Boddie and Joe and Kathleen Neitzey for countless sacrifi ces in the name of family. Most of all, to Clare, who strummed her guitar to the music of Paul McCartney, James Taylor, and the Indigo Girls during many late-night (re)writing ses- sions; you’ve multiplied life by the power of two.

To Kate and Drew Newman, who were patient when deadlines always landed smack at the end of vacations: a ton of IOUs and much gratitude. To Tish Kelley, who always encouraged the pur- suit of dreams: love, thanks, and a good long laugh about it all. To Pete, who heard and read these stories many times over, asked all the right questions, and believed in just the right ways: an honorary byline and many hugs.

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xi

Foreword —Cory Booker,

Mayor of Newark, New Jersey

I’ve learned that real heroes usually aren’t the kind of people you read about in newspapers or see on TV. Real heroes are usually the ones concerned with the least glamorous of things. In fact, I’ve come to believe strongly that the most heroic or biggest thing we can do in any day is a small act of kindness, decency, or love. What frustrates me is that so often we allow our inability to do the big things to undermine our determination to do the small things, those acts of kindness, decency, and love that in their aggregate over days, weeks, and years make powerful change.

My parents raised me to know this. They raised me to under- stand that I was the result of a vast and profound conspiracy of love. My father, for example, was born poor. In fact, he jokes now that he wasn’t born poor, he was born “po”—he couldn’t afford the other two letters. He was born to a single mother who couldn’t take care of him, and after his grandmother couldn’t take care of him either, it was the kindness and love of strangers that stabilized his life and gave him a foundation to eventually head off to college. This past Thanksgiving as my family was going around the table saying what we were thankful for, my father got a little emotional talking about his childhood and how people whose names he

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xii F O R E W O R D

couldn’t even remember helped him. He talked about how when he was college-age, people reached out and gave him dollar bills to ensure he could afford his fi rst semester’s tuition.

Time and time again, my parents reminded me that there were thousands of people over numerous generations who did for my family and our ancestors. All that I have now is the result not only of famous people from history, but mostly of ordinary Americans who showed extraordinary kindness—small acts that were not required of them but that they just did . I am proud of that part of our American history. I am proud that although I don’t know their names, there were so many people who just did: they mentored and marched, they served and sacrifi ced, they loved.

We in this nation drink deeply from wells of freedom and liberty that we did not dig; we eat from lavish banquet tables that were prepared for us by our common ancestors. And we can either sit back and consume all that has been placed before us, or we can choose to remember. We may not remember names or dates, but we can remember this spirit, that soulfulness, the conspiracy of love that so shaped our nation and experiences. And more than remem- ber, we can metabolize our blessings and keep the conspiracy alive.

In Newark, I often get to witness people who are the modern- day manifestation of this spirit of humility and service. I encounter and work with people who are focused on the least glamorous of things and yet make some of the most profound differences in our city. In fact, I am proud that the spirit that took my father, from a “po” boy without a home, to a college graduate, IBM executive, and even father of two children is alive and well.

Three blocks away from City Hall is a place called Covenant House. The people there work with youth, and I believe they see in each one the same potential, promise, dignity, and hope that people saw when they looked at my dad back in the 1940s and 1950s. They serve homeless youth, but I actually think that through what they do, they serve us all.

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F O R E W O R D xiii

They do the wonderfully unglamorous things; they perform signifi cant and unyielding small acts of kindness, decency, and love. They empower lives and change destinies. They know that it actually doesn’t take all that much to keep a young life from veer- ing far off track.

In the stories you’ll fi nd in this book, there are several cross- roads, where a kid’s fate turns on the next encounter: will a kind person come along, or will it be a mugger, or a hater, or worse? Sometimes it’s an elderly couple who give a kid a lift to a homeless shelter. Sometimes it’s a counselor who says, “You look like you need to talk.” Sometimes it’s a barber who sees potential and hires someone fresh out of jail, lending him tools of the trade; or it’s a friend’s mom who lets a kid crash in the guest room for a couple weeks. Sometimes it’s a coach or a teacher or a volunteer who provides the belief and encouragement that lights a fi re in a young heart. None of these actions cost the grownups all that much, but each act of kindness and love from a humble hero can form a turn- ing point for a kid who needs direction.

At Covenant House, the stakes are higher than at many other places. Covenant House workers have one main goal: to love kids the world too often calls unlovable; they want to keep the conspir- acy of love alive for everyone, to ensure that no one is left without. It’s not always easy work, but they try hard to bring open and lov- ing hearts to kids who, often, don’t believe that adults can possibly care. No one has before, so why should some stranger start now?

I’ve encountered other disadvantaged young people in my travels; I’ve seen their uncertainty, or worse, the way their eyes seem to shut down in the face of poverty and hopelessness. But at Covenant House, I see enthusiasm in the eyes of the young people, their hope, and how they know big things are possible for them.

It’s the ones who arrive at the shelter who are, in some ways, lucky and the ones most likely to succeed, the ones most likely to

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xiv F O R E W O R D

contribute to the well-being and strength of all of us. By defi ni- tion, they care enough about their future and their safety to come in from the dangers of their homes or the street. Their instinct for self-preservation hasn’t been pummeled out of them yet. Some have heard about the shelter through a friend or a family member, which means they may have a social network in place.

It’s the isolated, defeated kids, the kids in cities and towns without youth shelters, who make me worry—they don’t have any- where to make a home or fi nd a community of support. They’re the ones who are most vulnerable to the dangers of the streets.

I’ve seen too many of our kids, young and uncertain, wonder- ing if they will ever have a fair shot at attaining their dreams. They wonder if the world is a place that will welcome them or smack them down—again.

Fortunately there are many ways grownups can help, many ways our small acts can make big differences. We can advocate for homeless kids, wherever they are, and we can simply become more aware by reading up on ways to prevent youth homelessness, such as those described in this book.

I am lucky. I had a father and mother who provided me a home; I had a father who had a community that would not let him fail when he was young. And we all encountered a world where we were taught that we had worth, not one that made us feel worthless.

Too many Covenant House kids grow up without any of those blessings. They get mad at the world, and at the people who have hurt them. They have what Kevin Ryan calls “dynamite in their stomachs,” an emotional storm that can be calmed by love or hope, but only if they fi nd it.

I have a stubborn faith in us as a community and nation. I believe that we can give every kid these basics: a feeling of worth, a home, and a pathway to advance their dreams. We can break the cycle of despair and hopelessness kids can get caught in. In fact it

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F O R E W O R D xv

is not a question of can we—it is a question of will we. I believe, collectively, that we will break the cycle of poverty and homeless- ness. Covenant House has a mighty recipe for doing that: uncon- ditional respect and love, help with schooling and fi nding jobs and apartments, assistance with mental and physical health needs, and a shared belief in our children’s future and their ability to follow their dreams.

We can’t lose a generation to homelessness. With the loss of those children, we would lose all they could contribute to strengthening our communities. That doesn’t have to happen. It can’t happen, not on our watch. Generations to come depend on our success.

I know that those folks who helped my dad may not have imag- ined my brother, me, and our generation, but their conspiracy of love back then helped us to serve, give, and love now. Let’s keep the conspiracy going and make real on the promise of our nation that our children speak of every single day in a chorus of conviction, when they say those last six words of the pledge: With Liberty and Justice for All.

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xvii

Preface Years to Understand the Light

—Kevin Ryan

I came to New York City in the fall of 1992 as a newly minted lawyer fresh from Georgetown Law Center, hoping to save the world and help homeless and runaway youth. My charge was to provide legal aid to homeless young people in family court, housing court, or any of the civil venues that overfl owed with poor people.

I arrived at Covenant House, which this year celebrates its forti- eth anniversary, just as the dust was settling from the worst scandal to hit an American charity in many years. Truth is, there wasn’t a long line of applicants eager to work at Covenant House back then. In 1989, Covenant House’s founder, Father Bruce Ritter, had been accused of having sexual relationships with several young people at the shelter, of keeping a secret trust fund, and of further fi nancial improprieties. He was never charged with a crime, but he stepped down as head of the agency in February 1990. That was shortly before the Manhattan district attorney said he would not bring criminal charges against Father Ritter. A report commissioned by Covenant House’s Board of Directors described “cumulative evidence . . . supporting the allegations of sexual misconduct” and added, “Father Ritter exercised unacceptably poor judgment in his relations with certain residents.” The report, supervised by a former

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xviii P R E F A C E

New York City police commissioner, concluded, “[I]f Father Ritter had not resigned, the termination of the relationship between him and Covenant House would have been required.”

With Covenant House’s future hanging in the balance, the Board of Directors hired a new president, a forceful social worker and Roman Catholic nun, to save the day, and that she did. Sister Mary Rose McGeady arrived in 1990, clear-eyed about the task before her: thousands of staff members, volunteers, and donors felt betrayed, curtailing their support of Covenant House just as the economic recession of the early 1990s caused a surge in teen homelessness. She implemented rigorous new standards of trans- parency and accountability that the state attorney general had insisted on, and she spent the fi rst several years restoring confi - dence in the charity. Thanks to her work, after a free fall in dona- tions in 1990, charitable contributions to the agency grew again, allowing her to more than double the number of Covenant Houses in the United States, Canada, and Latin America.

Unlike most of Covenant House’s supporters at that time, I had not learned about homeless teenagers from Father Ritter or Sister Mary Rose. My tutor was a young woman named Clare, whom I knew from my undergraduate days at Catholic University and who had decided to become a full-time volunteer at Covenant House in New Orleans after graduation. I was so touched by the ways the isolated young people of the French Quarter inhabited her heart, I signed up for a tour of duty myself and soon resolved to make it part of my life’s mission or, more accurately, our life’s mission. By the time I fi nished law school, Clare and I were married and had an infant son.

Covenant House in New York City was a revelation to me. I had never dined with teenagers grappling with despair, until that Thanksgiving when I met three boys who had just learned at our health center that they had tested positive for HIV and were sing- ing bits of pop songs they wanted played at their funerals. I had no idea that some fi fteen- and sixteen-year-olds endured serial

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P R E F A C E xix

rapes for the benefi t of corner pimps, until I met them in the shelter that fi rst Christmas, two of them pregnant. I just didn’t realize so many young people were homeless and alone. I did not understand that children—in real life, as opposed to in the movies—were ever stolen from their families, forced into servi- tude, and driven to life on the streets. That is, until I met Binnie. She was the fi rst teenager who asked for my help at Covenant House, back in 1992. Picked up by the Port Authority Police, she was brought to Covenant House in a puddle of tears. Reeking of dirt and urine, she was shy, anxious, full of fear, and unable to hold her head up.

Lost in her misery, Binnie was a slight fi gure, eyes bloodshot from crying, and for good reason. As a young teenager, she had been taken from her home by extended family members when her mother fell ill. They withdrew her from school, forced her to do all of the family’s cooking and cleaning, and forbade her to leave the house. By the time she was sixteen, her family had offered her up to the son of a powerful neighbor, who repeatedly raped her. She escaped one night, made her way to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City, and scavenged for food in the trash cans, sleeping for more than a week among the terminals until the police found her and brought her to Covenant House.

Binnie’s life allowed me to confront human suffering in a new way. Yet even as the white-hot spotlight of her reality illuminated dark corners for me, I still could not see the fullness of her life. I did not know it at the time, but much like the Alaskan halibut caught by Paulie Robbins, whose story inspired me and broke my heart during the reporting for this book, I was developing a blind spot at Covenant House. The halibut has two eyes on one cheek, and it is unable to see half the world. I was just like that, blind to the other side of the bridge where the kids were heading. I came to know mostly the darkness and the shadows, and it would be years before I began to understand the light.

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xx P R E F A C E

Then one day I ran into Binnie at a diner in midtown Manhattan. She was almost unrecognizable, though she had not gained more than fi ve pounds or grown an inch since I met her. I remembered her as a hunched teenager, but now she was a tall young woman in her early twenties, poised and smiling, head held high. She wore a bright-blue waitress dress with a white apron, and her face glowed. She told me about her determination to become a registered nurse and work in a hospital. The diner salary helped pay her way through nursing school, so she did not need to rely on loans. She was dating a boy she had met at church, and he was kind and loving. She said she was happy in this new life. I told her she was amazing.

Whether or not she knew it at the time, Binnie planted a seed that sparked a handful of new questions for me as I walked back to the shelter.

How could a young person, abandoned by everyone around her and left to sleep in an airport, go on to dedicate her life to others as a nurse? How do young people transcend the sort of vio- lence and rejection that overshadowed Binnie’s childhood? How do kids prosper after suffering alone on the streets for months, sometimes years? How could travelers pass by that heap of a girl sleeping at JFK airport without noticing her? And when they do notice young people like her, how can they help?

The best answers, of course, lay in the lives of the young people themselves and in the acts of compassion by complete strangers that inspire transformation. I cowrote this book to fi nd these answers, tell these stories, and, I hope, encourage people of goodwill to believe they can make a difference in the lives of young homeless people, helping them on their way to a brighter future.

In the darkness, inspiration is not merely a fl ashlight; it is the oxygen that keeps us breathing. I have seen it time and again, starting with the many years I worked with homeless, runaway, and traffi cked youth at Covenant House. But this is not limited

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P R E F A C E xxi

to Covenant House. I spent seven years working to reform child protection systems and helping to launch a global support pro- gram with the United Nations to reduce malaria deaths, which at the time claimed more than 1 million lives a year, mostly African children. When I returned to head Covenant House in 2009, I did so savoring the optimism and determination of the men and the women who had blazed trails during these years, achieving signifi - cant improvements in New Jersey’s child welfare system and stun- ning reductions in malaria mortality in Africa. My colleagues sent me back to Covenant House with a gift: the belief that anything is possible if people are inspired to make it so.

Less than a year ago, I received a note from Binnie, now a mother to three young children and a nurse in the pediatric inten- sive care unit at a top hospital. “My dear Kevin,” she wrote, “I hope you had a very good Thanksgiving with all the children. We had a very nice day here. I have so many things to be grateful for, something I never forget when I see all the sick little ones here at the hospital.” Times were tight, she said, because her husband was looking for work, but she and her family had all that they needed, and she was sending fi fty dollars to buy a warm meal for children at Covenant House.

“I hope it helps,” she signed off. It did, in more ways than one. I hope her story and the stories of young people like her remind us that we can change the world, one bold kindness at a time.

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xxiii

Preface Help and the Homing Instinct

—Tina Kelley

When Kevin spoke about his desire to coauthor a book about home- less kids, it sounded like a dream job. The challenges inherent in this project remind me a bit of those I found in writing 121 “Portraits of Grief” at the New York Times , short descriptions of the people silenced forever on September 11, 2001. How do you present a multifaceted life in a way that honors it most authentically? How can you write about searing loss—of life, of innocence, of child- hood—while still inviting people in to read more, to look through the pain and fi nd common ground? Our mission was to introduce some exceptional young people so that readers could feel at home with them, understand their stories, and know them by name, not as “those kids,” a phrase that seldom leads anywhere good.

I had volunteered at the Covenant House shelter in New York City in the late 1980s and admired the courage of its residents then. Now, as the young people in this book welcomed me into their stories, they convinced me of the commonalities among us all. We all wanted to go to the prom, we all love our music, we all have shaken our heads at grownups, and we all have had people who believe in us.

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xxiv P R E F A C E

Yet the mettle of these six young adults—Paulie, Muriel, Benjamin, Creionna, Keith, and Meagan—has been tempered by the sickness in their homes and the greed of their exploiters. I wondered how on earth I would have made it through the adversity they faced as babies or toddlers or young children, through no moral failing of their own. Those circumstances, which might well have fl attened me, often left them vilifi ed and victimized, but here they were, speaking frankly, often smiling. I felt as if I were interviewing marathon runners, while I had never even jogged around the block.

During my decade at the Times , I wrote many stories about controversies involving marginalized or voiceless individuals, sto- ries on polarized communities and courageous struggles against popular opinion. I reported on the health problems of a Native American tribe living near a Superfund site; a transgender voca- tional school principal in a rural town; and the lives of children waiting to be adopted out of foster care. I also covered Kevin’s efforts to reform New Jersey’s troubled child welfare system, when he was the statewide child advocate and then the commissioner of the Department of Children and Families. All of these arti- cles, I see now, involved people whose sense of home had been severely shaken.

I never knew how much home mattered to kids who had dan- gerous family lives. I used to think children would be glad to land in a safe and friendly foster home, where they could expect an end to the beatings and careless insults. From working on this book, though, I see that the pull of home, even a scary and sadistic one, is deeply ingrained in us all.

Slowly, I came to understand why Benjamin, when he was four, would try to cross a four-lane road to return to the mother who had burned him—to him, she was also the source of the fi rst comfort he had ever known, and he hoped beyond hope that she would comfort him again. I was amazed by the forgiveness and generosity Meagan showed to her family, who had kicked her to the curb. And

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P R E F A C E xxv

Keith startled me when he turned the other cheek to his mother, who, he was told, had killed his father and then abandoned her three tiny sons. I remembered the philosopher Blaise Pascal, who wrote, “The heart has reasons that reason knows nothing of.”

It is hard to spend time with young people in Covenant House without fuming about and grieving for their parents. Certainly, we hear more of the kid’s side of the story, not the details of a mother’s frustrations over a broken curfew or a father’s anger about skipped school. But to hear a child talk about a parent’s cruelty stretches the limits of compassion.

It helps to remember that the parents, too, are God’s children, God’s broken children, perhaps, but full of their own dreams, regrets, talents, missteps, and humanity as well. What went wrong to make them hear voices in their heads? What demons were they fl eeing, what memories were they reenacting when they hit and hurt their children so deeply?

Many Covenant House kids carry snapshots of themselves as little ones, and these can be more painful to see than any report in a case fi le. Here is a chubby, pony-tailed Creionna—isn’t there a way to wave a wand and give this toddler the future she deserves? Here’s a picture of Paulie, catching halibut in Alaska, before most of the beatings, before his family imploded, before he quit school. His eyes show all of the promise of a kid who is smart enough to earn an equivalency diploma after attending only a few months of high school. If only someone had stepped in when these kids were young, to give them the right kind of love and attention to help them fl ourish! But that didn’t happen.

Jim White, who runs one of our largest Covenant Houses, in New York City, says in this book, “Sometimes we run and we run, and only home can make us whole. We have to turn back and make peace in order to move forward.” A true home, serving as both springboard and anchor, has been stolen from the kids in this book, but somehow they have transcended that defi cit.

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xxvi P R E F A C E

They survive. They start to thrive, building their own new lives and new relationships, with so little preparation and modeling from their earlier years. With the generous gift of their time and explanations, these three young men and three young women at the heart of our book, and the adults who have guided them, have helped me see that they are, in a word, crucial. So are their stories.

As I researched more about homeless young people, I saw how they try to fl y under the radar, keeping themselves invisible. Many of us don’t notice homeless young people at all. We walk past street musicians or kids asking for spare change, not thinking twice when we see a teenager leaning against a bus station wall. Kids like them sit next to us on the subway or fold our clothes at the Gap, yet their secret strengths, their humor and hopefulness, remain hidden.

They don’t want us to know they have nowhere to go. The advocacy community has found it nearly impossible to obtain an accurate count of homeless young people, in part because they fi nd it safer and less embarrassing to hide. Homeless kids tend to stay with friends, disappear into the woods or the alleys, and gen- erally avoid attention, to steer clear of the people who might use, rob, or harm them. Some don’t want to be sent to foster care. Some are ashamed of their unwashed bodies and ill-fi tting clothes, while they live off scraps and try to make it to school or work. Those who are being prostituted are kept hidden by their exploiters and made to lie about their age if stopped by the police. That’s all the more reason their journeys must be understood.

What is lost as these young people have gone unnoticed? It’s hard to help someone if you don’t know he or she exists. It’s hard for these kids to exist, literally, if more people don’t help. And with a little help and hope received in times of crisis, they can have the indepen- dent and healthy lives they deserve. My wish is that the young people in this book and the many more whom Covenant House serves can fi nd a home in your heart and, with the help of others like you, a lov- ing home of their own, at last.

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1

Introduction

Homeless young people largely remain invisible, except to the strangers who step forward to offer a hand and, in doing so, change their world. This book describes the courage of six tena- cious young people across North America, but it is just as much about the adults who gave them a chance—sometimes working within Covenant House, sometimes not. They look rather average: a New Orleans cook who has spent her life feeding other women’s children; a New Jersey executive searching for a deeper meaning to life; an Alaskan single mother battling to keep hope alive after her husband leaves; a Vancouver nun at war with traffi ckers and pimps; a Texas football family, scooping up a new son from the ruins of a violent childhood; and the social workers, foster parents, and friends around the United States and Canada who care for children who have nowhere to go. They may not have trophies on their man- tels for it, but they have each helped guide a young person into the great promise of his or her life.

For the last forty years, there’s been no shortage of stories to be found at Covenant House, the largest charity of its kind in the Americas helping homeless, runaway, and traffi cked children and

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2 A L M O S T H O M E

youth. Each night about thirteen hundred kids stay at the char- ity’s shelters in the United States and Canada, and each young person could weave a compelling narrative, though few such sto- ries are ever heard by a large audience. Covenant House shel- ters help kids in Anchorage, Atlanta, Atlantic City, Detroit, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Los Angeles, New Orleans, New York City, Newark, Oakland, Orlando, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Toronto, Vancouver, and Washington, D.C. Each year Covenant House shelters more than eleven thousand youth, most between six- teen and twenty-one, and it reaches more than fi fty-six thousand, including those who are helped by its crisis hotline and outreach vans that search the streets and alleys of dangerous neighborhoods, looking for kids in need. In New Jersey, Covenant House provides shelter for young mothers in Elizabeth and for young people with mental health issues in Montclair, with plans for a storefront open- ing in Camden and outreach efforts under way in Jersey City and Asbury Park.

Beyond the United States and Canada, each night Covenant House also takes care of an additional four hundred younger chil- dren, including many traffi cking survivors, in safe houses and shel- ters in Managua, Nicaragua; Tegucigalpa, Honduras; Guatemala City, Guatemala; and Mexico City, Mexico. Covenant House is known in these countries as Casa Alianza, and this extraordinary human rights work across Latin America merits a book of its own; stay tuned. This book focuses on the experiences of homeless chil- dren and youth in the United States and Canada.

Each year as many as two million young people in the United States face an episode of homelessness; in Canada, an estimated sixty-fi ve thousand young people are homeless. While milk cartons have shown the faces of missing kids whose parents are pan- icked and heartsick over their absence, who looks for the adoles- cents who get kicked out of their homes and land in the streets? More than half of the unaccompanied young people interviewed

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I N T R O D U C T I O N 3

by the Family and Youth Services Bureau of the United States Administration for Children and Families said their parents either told them to leave home or knew they were leaving and didn’t care. These kids are lonesome and low on resources, needing a room to sleep in, food for breakfast, and a sympathetic ear.

Almost 40 percent of homeless people in the United States are under eighteen. Many live with at least one parent, but some young people become homeless when they believe the streets offer a safer alternative to abusive, drug-dependent, or mentally ill fami- lies. Some never had a consistent home, because they were tossed through the foster care system, never adopted, then left alone at age eighteen. Some are kicked out of their homes right after telling their parents they are gay or pregnant, and some are considered old enough to make it on their own when an extra mouth to feed is too expensive or when their mental health issues cause too much trouble. In any case, the myth of the star-struck adolescent who runs away to Hollywood or Times Square to fi nd a glamorous new life is largely out of date. Young people too often run away from something awful, not toward something hopeful.

Recently, during the worst U.S. recession since the Great Depression, their chances of fi nding work and an affordable apart- ment are slim at best. According to a February report from the Pew Research Center, the percentage of employed young adults ages eighteen to twenty-four fell from 62.4 in 2007 to 54.3 in 2011, the lowest since such fi gures were fi rst gathered in 1948. Calls from homeless youth to the National Runaway Switchboard increased 5 percent since 2011, 50 percent since 2009, and 80 percent since 2002.

It takes courage or desperation to swallow enough fear, pride, and adolescent invincibility to come through the doors of one of Covenant House’s shelters. The young people are a varied group, but they have all been sorely tested. Only 41 percent have a high school diploma. In a recent study of fi ve representative shelters

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4 A L M O S T H O M E

by the Covenant House Institute, the organization’s research arm, 40 percent of the kids had been in foster care or another institu- tional setting, 38 percent had experienced physical abuse, and 40 percent of the teenage girls and young women had been sexually abused. Almost 80 percent of the young people were unemployed, 63 percent lacked health insurance, and more than a quarter had been hospitalized for depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues. More than half came from a family where someone used drugs regularly. Many of the kids have been told, over and over until it echoes in their heads like a voice of their own, that they are worthless and will never amount to anything.