Every day and especially every night young people in this metropolis in recovery are finding themselves at the mercy of every possible peril of life in the big city and left to fend for themselves in the most desperate and dangerous circumstances imaginable. They are kids who have aged out of foster care, kids who have been neglected and abused by their biological and non-parental caregivers and kids who are suffer any number and variety of mental health conditions. Life for them is a dismal undertaking of waiting for rescue or death, but they are a tenacious group who fight relentlessly to see another day.
“We find a way to take care of ourselves the best we can,” said a formerly homeless young man who says he’s proud of the survival skills he honed living on the streets of Detroit. “I came here from Flint. My mother is an alcoholic, she drinks a couple of fifths of day and I haven’t seen or talked to her since I was 15,” explains the now 23-year-old who successfully completed several homeless shelter programs, including Mariner’s Inn, and secured full-time employment along with a modest apartment and a chance at a future.
Gerald Piro, Covenant House executive director, with nearly 30 years of experience in the field of providing services for homeless youth, says the problem of young people subjugated to life on the streets is growing it become increasingly difficult to address the problem. “To get a read on the exact scope of the problem is difficult, because vagrant people have a way of hiding the problem of having a place to live.
On any given day 5,000 Detroiters are embroiled in a daily struggle to surviving the ravages of poverty and homelessness and approximately 25 percent of that population falls between the ages of 18 to 24.
“A lot of homeless youth start out by aging out of foster care, and once they age out of foster care if there is no real plan, they make their own plan,” explained Piro. “Then you have in the city of Detroit a number of people who have lost their homes and the families break apart with the hope that they are going to get back together again, but that become very difficult to do.”
These factors coupled with the segment of the youth population who struggle with serious mental health issues and youth who have been the victims of tremendous abuse issues including abandonment and neglect causes these young victims to distrust authority and form their own forms of family connection and social communes. “In Detroit with the preponderance of abandoned homes, it allows for a lot of cover, and they form these family groups in these properties,” adds Piro.
Since 1997, Covenant House Michigan has helped thousands of homeless and at-risk young people annually and provides housing and supportive services to approximately 75 Detroit youth between the ages of 18 and 24 daily. In addition to food and shelter, Covenant House provides job development services and crisis intervention to its residents and other young people. The agency operates an outreach van that drives through metro Detroit-area neighborhoods and offers on the spot assistance to homeless young adults and accompanying children.
As dismal as the story is of youth and homelessness, the situation is not without some measure of hope. “When kids age out of foster care, if they take advantage of all that is available to them, if they want to go to college there is [substantial] financial help available for former foster children. But unfortunately, unless they have that guidance readily available via social workers, once they are out of that foster system and that family that has been responsible for them they feel like the freedom … especially if the foster environment has not been conducive to a great family life and a lot of them switch homes frequently and subsequently they fail,” said the veteran child care professional, adding, “this is not an indictment of foster care, they are necessary, but we had young man who told me he had been institutionalized since he was five and he wanted to be out. We have girls who come here and deliver babies, but unless they have a permanent address, the cycle repeats itself and those kids end up in the cycle too.”
Covenant house which operates 30 homes for homeless youth in the U.S. and Latin America — only one of which is located in the state and the Detroit — works closely with health and crisis agencies around the world. The organization is 98 percent funded by private grants and donations with only two percent of its funding coming from the Housing and Urban Development Agency. And that funding is at risk, although Piro is dedicated to opening a second facility in Grand Rapids.
Located at 2959 Martin Luther King, Covenant House operates with a full-time around the clock staff of 55 residential advisors or “holy people” who act as parents to displaced youth.
By living on the streets, these people are exposed to everything that is bad out there. Number on is trafficking for sex or work. They are also exposing themselves to the temptation of taking drugs, because they are going to congregate with others that are in the same situation, And then they are exposed to illness, STDs and violence,” laments Piro. “That’s a lot of negativity all in one place. Most importantly their deteriorating mental health will only get worse.”
Covenant house residents are eligible to receive emergency housing and services for a period of 90 days. Successful recipients are eligible to move to longer term care for period of up to two years and can avail themselves of an array of training and employment programs.
Covenant House Michigan spearheaded four-second chance high schools, Covenant House Academy (authorized through Grand Valley State University), to offer dropouts and at-risk youth the opportunity to obtain a high school diploma. Over 900 youth are enrolled each year.
Covenant House recently screened the documentary Shelter to raise awareness of the perils of homeless. Filmed in a Covenant House New Orleans the distressing stories of these young people surpass the level disturbing and too often end tragically.
“When I was on the streets we learned how to keep safe and stay alive,” says Edison. “Other homeless people taught me about sleeping over heating grates or building fires, and the best overpasses to sleep under and even sometimes how to steal away in a building to shield ourselves from the elements and the danger. But we helped each other survive and live if you want to call it that.”
For more information on Covenant House Michigan, call (313) 463-2000 or visit www.covenanthousemi.org.
About Post Author
