November 18, 2024 • 16 mins
November is Youth Homelessness Awareness Month. To bring attention, show solidarity and raise critical funds, Covenant House is hosting Sleep Out—a transformative overnight experience—in 19 cities, including three events in our area—on Thursday, November 21. Our guest is Colleen Veldt, Vice President of P2P Fundraising at Covenant House International. Covenant House New York is proud to be New York City’s largest provider serving youth experiencing homelessness. For more, visit Covenanthouse.org.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to get connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to get connected, Thanks for listening. In November, which
is Youth Homelessness Awareness Month, to bring attention, show solidarity,
and raise critical funds, Covenant House is hosting sleep Out,
a transformative overnight experience in nineteen cities, including three events
in our area this Thursday, November twenty first our guest
is Colleen Veldt, vice president of Peer to Peer Fundraising
(00:34):
at Covenant House International. Colleen, thank you for being on
the show.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Covenant House Doors are open in thirty four cities across
five countries in North and Central America, providing affirming and
transformative services so each young person can create their own
path to independence. You can find out more at Covenanthouse
dot org and Colleen. Since November is Youth Homelessness Awareness Month,
let's talk about some of just the deets. How big
(01:00):
is this issue? To begin with youth homelessness, there are.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
About four point two million young people who will face
homelessness every year. That's a huge number. I have struggled
to conceptualize what that actually means. So our team broke
it down and it works out to about one in
ten young people between the ages of sixteen and twenty one.
That stat feels very alarming to me. That's one in ten.
(01:28):
That number is consistent whether you are in a city,
a suburb, or a rural area.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
There is no.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Dramatic change, which I think surprises some people. But that
also means that you probably know someone who is or
was homeless as a young person. I know more than
ten people that the odds are there, they're in our favor,
and yet we don't all identify as knowing someone who
has faced homelessness.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
But that might not be the case.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
There's a lot of stigma associated with being homeless, especially
for young people. So we find that our youth will say,
you know, I'm CouchSurfing, I'm staying with a friend, I'm
moving in with a relative for a period. But any
of that unstable housing situations would be considered homeless and
is really difficult, especially as a young person, to find
(02:16):
your footing and get a job, make it to school, work,
make sure your mental health is taken care of. All
of those things that we know are key to building
an independent adulthood.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I want to go back to one point you made
about people CouchSurfing. I had a conversation a couple of
years ago with an organization working with I believe it
was cuney students who are essentially CouchSurfing. Right. These are
college students who are just living, you know, from room
to room with a friend here and a friend there,
and people don't really recognize that that's homelessness. You don't
have to necessarily be on the street with a sign.
(02:51):
It can be just everyday.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Kids, absolutely, and kids are really good at going unnoticed
and slipping through the cracks. Because if you're you're acunity
student or another college student and you are finding yourself
without a safe place to sleep, that probably means you've
been let down by an adult or an institution once
or twice in your life. So you're not necessarily going
(03:13):
to raise your hand and say, hey, can somebody help me.
I'm in a tough situation. You're going to try to
make it work. You're going to try to figure it
out for yourself. You're going to try to slide under
the radar and keep doing what you need to do,
keep making it to class, keep making it to work.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
But that's really challenging.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
We know, we hear from students all the time who
can't afford university housing. It's not guaranteed, and usually that
also comes with things like food and stability too.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Covenant House New York has sites in Manhattan and the
Bronx and serves youth ages sixteen to twenty four, including
young families with children ages zero to six and survivors
of human trafficking. Talking about the younger kids in particular,
how do they not necessarily zero to six, but the
younger teenagers. One of the steps you sent me was that,
(04:00):
especially for children in Central and South America, it may
be more likely to be because of neglect or abuse.
Is that the case here in the North or you know,
so what are the myriad of cases of how kids
are ending up there in the first place?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
In Central and America, we see young people largely between
the ages of twelve and sixteen, who are independent in
finding their ways to us because of exactly that neglect abuse.
They don't have a stable or safe home that they
can go back to, and they make their way to
us in the US. It is it does you a
little bit older, but a lot of the situations are
(04:37):
the same. We do have a foster care system that's
supposed to catch those kids and should be that social
safety net. It doesn't work, that's breaking news. The foster
care system is not perfect, and we have young people
who are often in unsafe foster care situations or once
that just don't work for one reason or another.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
So they might find their way to Covenant House.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
We work closely with the city agencies to make sure
they know where this young person is and we're often
granted permission that says, yep, this is the right place
for this young person. Our teams are pretty integrated in
the larger community, so we hear from guidance counselors, we
hear from folks working in the juvenile justice system. We
(05:22):
hear from other shelters. So if a young person walks
into an adult shelter, that shelter worker might say, hey,
there's another place where you can go. So we really
do rely on those word of mouth referrals also for
young people to be able to find their.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Way to our doors.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
So a bed is one thing, but what else does
Covenant House offer and how long is that support? Available.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Yeah, the bed is the first step.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Right, a young person walks through our doors, we're going
to say, do you have a safe do you need
a place to sleep? Do you need to take a nap?
Do you need something to eat? Do you need to
wash your clothes? Do you need to brush your teeth?
These basic immediate essential care items. Once we've got those
immediate needs taken care of, we can really dig in
and say, all right, let's zoom out. How did you
(06:08):
get here, what's going on in your life, and how
can we help? And that's where Covenant House is special.
We're not a traditional shelter. It's not just you know,
the three hots and a cop that you might find
at a city shelter. We have in house workforce development teams,
so staff who are going to work with young people
on their resumes and career mapping, some vocational training and
(06:32):
job placements. We have education programs so we can get
young people connected with ged your high school equivalency programs
with college and secondary education. We have on staff mental
health care providers that can work with young people one
on one and in group therapy, which can be a
little more accessible for teenagers who might be hesitant about
(06:54):
sharing their feelings with a stranger. And we also in
New York, we have a federally qualified health center on
staff are on site as well. Most of our young
people will have a physical within seventy two hours, and
we also have visiting dentists, eye doctors who come through
there as well to make sure that those physical needs
are met. I will never forget meeting a young person
(07:17):
who found out they were almost legally blind. After three
days at being a Covenant House, they got their first
pair of glasses.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
That's a very tangible life changing moment for them.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
But these are the things that you catch when we
know a young person hasn't been to a doctor consistently,
or hasn't had any mental health care before, hasn't had
a teacher or a mentor who's been able to do
a mock interview with them. So we're really trying to
fill the gaps anywhere we can. Young people are in
the driver's seat, but we're sort of fueling wherever they
(07:51):
want to go and following their lead on this is
the direction. We're here to cheer you on and get
you everything you need to get to your destination.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Covenant House, New York is proud to be New York
City's largest provider serving youth experiencing homelessness. The sleepout is
this Thursday, November twenty first, we'll talk more about that
in a moment. Our guest is Colleen Veldt, vice president
of Peer to peer Fundraising at Covenant House International. The
website is Covenant House dot org. You're listening to get
connected on one oh six point seven Light FM. I'm
(08:20):
Nina del Rio. As far as teens experiencing homelessness in
New York City, you mentioned that it's kind of across
the board cities, rural areas, urban areas, it's the same
percentage that might be homeless. So are the kids that
we see, the young people that you might see that
are homeless in New York or don't see, are they
mostly from our area and is there some sort of
(08:43):
program or discussion about maybe reintroducing them to parents.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Yes, we do talk to our young people about family
integration if it's an option. So that's a traditional question
we would ask when we're exploring how a young person
got here and what their path forward is going to
look like. Oftentimes, family reintegration isn't possible. There isn't a
safe family member who can support them, but sometimes there
(09:08):
is and sometimes we can intervene and help make some
of those situations easier. We can help a young person,
for example, apply for benefits that might help with some
of their living expenses, and they have a family member
who can help them with housing. So we do facilitate
a lot of those conversations. And that might be true
for a young person from New York City and from outside.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
New York is the center.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Of the world, right and we are located only a
few blocks from Port Authority, so we do get young
people who are coming in from all over the world.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Frankly, some of them might stay. This might be where
they're going.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Some of them might need help get into their next destination,
and that's something our staff can work with them onto.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
And for the average young person that you're working with,
how long are they involved with you and your services
before they're ready to sort of step out on their own.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
The average length of stay is about thirty days. I
always think that number is a little misleading, but because
there's another average that most of our average young person
will come to Covenant House three times, so we kind
of see it even out. And what looks a little
more traditional, is that a young person might come for
a few days. They might need, you know, just having
(10:20):
an emergency, need a place to stay, come in, be
familiar with our services, and then think, you know, I
got this, I'm good, I'm on my own, I just.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Needed to crash. But where they're going might not be sustainable.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
So they might then have us in the back of
their minds and they can come back and say, actually,
weren't you talking about helping me get a job. Weren't
you talking about helping me find an apartment? Is that something?
Now I'm more interested and I'd like to stay a
little longer, so they might come back again.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Our doors are always open.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
They can come back as many times as they need to,
and we'll stick with them throughout.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
So this sleepout is this Thursday. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
The sleepout is one of our big fundraising events for
Covenant House, and it is the night where we ask
people to give up their bed and sleep on the
streets of New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, the city near you,
your backyard, anywhere. As long as you're giving up your bed,
you can participate and sleep out for young people facing homelessness.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
So how it works.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Is you sign up online, you create a fundraising page,
and you engage in this advocacy about your sleepout leading
up to the event. It's a really key part of it.
We don't want to pretend to be homeless. We don't
want this to be, you know, sort of an empty
act of like I'm spending one night on the street,
(11:42):
but I'm going to be safer.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
I'm going to be with my friends or colleagues.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
So this fundraising, awareness raising that comes with it is
part of the deal. Right You're saying to your friends,
like I me, Colleen, you know me. I'm going to
sleep on the street on the West side of Manhattan.
This is why I want you to know about the
young people at Covenant House who are homeless. There are
one hundred and fifty young people sleeping at Covenant House
(12:07):
in Manhattan. Each of them need a bed. I'm giving
up my bed so they can find one tonight. Will
you support me with a donation? And it's really powerful.
You see people react in ways that they might not otherwise.
They turn their attention to this issue that they might
not be familiar with, and then all of our sleepers
come together on Thursday, on the twenty first, for this beautiful.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Evening of programming. They get to meet our young people
and some of our alumni. They get to.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Meet our expert staff who are just on the front
lines of ending youth homelessness. And you hear these stories
all before you go and lay your head outside. So
by the time you get out there, it's chili, but
you understand the purpose, you understand what you're there for,
and it really has that extra meaning.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
We are getting into. We've actually been very fortunate in
a way. The weather's been nice, right, so it's getting
a little bit chilly, and it's going to feel like
you're really out in the elements. I think a little
bit coming up this week for people who have done
this who really had no idea what that was like. Right,
You just want to help and you decide to do
to sleep out. Maybe you have done it, what is
the response or what has sort of been the takeaway
(13:16):
that you have heard about this event.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
I have slipt out personally about nine times, and my
takeaway is that each year I do it, it's hard.
It doesn't get easier each time. There's always something different,
even if.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
The forecast is a little warmer.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I'm telling you what, There's something about fifty degrees at
three am when you're sleeping on the concrete that just
feels colder than any other time of day. It's never comfortable,
And the best feeling in the world is getting back
to my apartment and taking a shower and going to bed,
and especially coming from this event where you're hearing these stories,
(13:56):
you're getting to meet these young people and realizing this
is what Covenant House. This feeling of getting into the
shower and feeling I'm warm again, of getting to go
back to my bed and really have a good night's
sleep because you don't sleep well. That relief is so
strong after only one night, after only a night when
I was safe, I knew where I was going the
(14:18):
next day. All of that just becomes so much more
tangible when you've done that one night yourself.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
In the New York metro area, the Sleepouse will be
outside of Jacob Jevett Center in Midtown, MetLife Stadium in
East Rutherford, and at Covenant Houses New Jersey Youth Engagement
Center in Newark. If someone isn't able to participate but
would like to contribute, what is your suggestion.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
You can sleep out from anywhere. You can sleep out
from your backyard, from your terrace, from your kitchen floor.
We have a toolkit to make it really meaningful and
impactful no matter what. And if that's not for you,
that's okay. We have other ways you can support. There
are thousands of people we're going to be sleeping out.
(15:01):
Making a donation to one of their sleepout pages is
just as impactful.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
To just wrap up briefly, you know. I think in
New York we see people on the streets all the time,
and especially when it's young people. Sometimes people think, why
don't they just get up and get a job, Why
don't they just go to school? How did they get there?
What would you say to that?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
I would say, come sleep out with us on Thursday
night and then give me a call at the end
of your day Friday, because it's hard and a lot
of us get up on Friday and go to work.
That feels like part of the sleepout experience where you
have to say, all right, I'm going to get through
the day just like a young person would and I'm cranky,
it's difficult, and I don't have to figure out where
(15:42):
my next meal is coming from or where I'm going
to sleep that night. So I think understanding how difficult
it really is to function day to day when your
basic needs are not being met, when you're in that
survival mode is really key. And that's where services like
Covenant House, where we can offer this trauma informed care
to a young person, say let's get you out of
(16:03):
this crisis, so then we can help you get a
job and move on to all the things, but we
have to get you out of this crisis situation.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
First.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Our guest is Colleen Veldt of Covenant House. You can
find out more at Covenant House dot org, including details
about the sleepout this Thursday, November twenty First, thank you
for being on to Get Connected.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Thank you so much, Tina.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven light Fm. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one oh six to seven lightfm
dot com. Thanks for listening.
Welcome to get connected with Nina del Rio, a weekly
conversation about fitness, health and happenings in our community on
one oh six point seven light FM.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to get connected, Thanks for listening. In November, which
is Youth Homelessness Awareness Month, to bring attention, show solidarity,
and raise critical funds, Covenant House is hosting sleep Out,
a transformative overnight experience in nineteen cities, including three events
in our area this Thursday, November twenty first our guest
is Colleen Veldt, vice president of Peer to Peer Fundraising
(00:34):
at Covenant House International. Colleen, thank you for being on
the show.
Speaker 4 (00:38):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:40):
Covenant House Doors are open in thirty four cities across
five countries in North and Central America, providing affirming and
transformative services so each young person can create their own
path to independence. You can find out more at Covenanthouse
dot org and Colleen. Since November is Youth Homelessness Awareness Month,
let's talk about some of just the deets. How big
(01:00):
is this issue? To begin with youth homelessness, there are.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
About four point two million young people who will face
homelessness every year. That's a huge number. I have struggled
to conceptualize what that actually means. So our team broke
it down and it works out to about one in
ten young people between the ages of sixteen and twenty one.
That stat feels very alarming to me. That's one in ten.
(01:28):
That number is consistent whether you are in a city,
a suburb, or a rural area.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
There is no.
Speaker 3 (01:34):
Dramatic change, which I think surprises some people. But that
also means that you probably know someone who is or
was homeless as a young person. I know more than
ten people that the odds are there, they're in our favor,
and yet we don't all identify as knowing someone who
has faced homelessness.
Speaker 4 (01:53):
But that might not be the case.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
There's a lot of stigma associated with being homeless, especially
for young people. So we find that our youth will say,
you know, I'm CouchSurfing, I'm staying with a friend, I'm
moving in with a relative for a period. But any
of that unstable housing situations would be considered homeless and
is really difficult, especially as a young person, to find
(02:16):
your footing and get a job, make it to school, work,
make sure your mental health is taken care of. All
of those things that we know are key to building
an independent adulthood.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
I want to go back to one point you made
about people CouchSurfing. I had a conversation a couple of
years ago with an organization working with I believe it
was cuney students who are essentially CouchSurfing. Right. These are
college students who are just living, you know, from room
to room with a friend here and a friend there,
and people don't really recognize that that's homelessness. You don't
have to necessarily be on the street with a sign.
(02:51):
It can be just everyday.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
Kids, absolutely, and kids are really good at going unnoticed
and slipping through the cracks. Because if you're you're acunity
student or another college student and you are finding yourself
without a safe place to sleep, that probably means you've
been let down by an adult or an institution once
or twice in your life. So you're not necessarily going
(03:13):
to raise your hand and say, hey, can somebody help me.
I'm in a tough situation. You're going to try to
make it work. You're going to try to figure it
out for yourself. You're going to try to slide under
the radar and keep doing what you need to do,
keep making it to class, keep making it to work.
Speaker 4 (03:29):
But that's really challenging.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
We know, we hear from students all the time who
can't afford university housing. It's not guaranteed, and usually that
also comes with things like food and stability too.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
Covenant House New York has sites in Manhattan and the
Bronx and serves youth ages sixteen to twenty four, including
young families with children ages zero to six and survivors
of human trafficking. Talking about the younger kids in particular,
how do they not necessarily zero to six, but the
younger teenagers. One of the steps you sent me was that,
(04:00):
especially for children in Central and South America, it may
be more likely to be because of neglect or abuse.
Is that the case here in the North or you know,
so what are the myriad of cases of how kids
are ending up there in the first place?
Speaker 3 (04:14):
In Central and America, we see young people largely between
the ages of twelve and sixteen, who are independent in
finding their ways to us because of exactly that neglect abuse.
They don't have a stable or safe home that they
can go back to, and they make their way to
us in the US. It is it does you a
little bit older, but a lot of the situations are
(04:37):
the same. We do have a foster care system that's
supposed to catch those kids and should be that social
safety net. It doesn't work, that's breaking news. The foster
care system is not perfect, and we have young people
who are often in unsafe foster care situations or once
that just don't work for one reason or another.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
So they might find their way to Covenant House.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
We work closely with the city agencies to make sure
they know where this young person is and we're often
granted permission that says, yep, this is the right place
for this young person. Our teams are pretty integrated in
the larger community, so we hear from guidance counselors, we
hear from folks working in the juvenile justice system. We
(05:22):
hear from other shelters. So if a young person walks
into an adult shelter, that shelter worker might say, hey,
there's another place where you can go. So we really
do rely on those word of mouth referrals also for
young people to be able to find their.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Way to our doors.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
So a bed is one thing, but what else does
Covenant House offer and how long is that support? Available.
Speaker 4 (05:46):
Yeah, the bed is the first step.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Right, a young person walks through our doors, we're going
to say, do you have a safe do you need
a place to sleep? Do you need to take a nap?
Do you need something to eat? Do you need to
wash your clothes? Do you need to brush your teeth?
These basic immediate essential care items. Once we've got those
immediate needs taken care of, we can really dig in
and say, all right, let's zoom out. How did you
(06:08):
get here, what's going on in your life, and how
can we help? And that's where Covenant House is special.
We're not a traditional shelter. It's not just you know,
the three hots and a cop that you might find
at a city shelter. We have in house workforce development teams,
so staff who are going to work with young people
on their resumes and career mapping, some vocational training and
(06:32):
job placements. We have education programs so we can get
young people connected with ged your high school equivalency programs
with college and secondary education. We have on staff mental
health care providers that can work with young people one
on one and in group therapy, which can be a
little more accessible for teenagers who might be hesitant about
(06:54):
sharing their feelings with a stranger. And we also in
New York, we have a federally qualified health center on
staff are on site as well. Most of our young
people will have a physical within seventy two hours, and
we also have visiting dentists, eye doctors who come through
there as well to make sure that those physical needs
are met. I will never forget meeting a young person
(07:17):
who found out they were almost legally blind. After three
days at being a Covenant House, they got their first
pair of glasses.
Speaker 4 (07:25):
That's a very tangible life changing moment for them.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
But these are the things that you catch when we
know a young person hasn't been to a doctor consistently,
or hasn't had any mental health care before, hasn't had
a teacher or a mentor who's been able to do
a mock interview with them. So we're really trying to
fill the gaps anywhere we can. Young people are in
the driver's seat, but we're sort of fueling wherever they
(07:51):
want to go and following their lead on this is
the direction. We're here to cheer you on and get
you everything you need to get to your destination.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Covenant House, New York is proud to be New York
City's largest provider serving youth experiencing homelessness. The sleepout is
this Thursday, November twenty first, we'll talk more about that
in a moment. Our guest is Colleen Veldt, vice president
of Peer to peer Fundraising at Covenant House International. The
website is Covenant House dot org. You're listening to get
connected on one oh six point seven Light FM. I'm
(08:20):
Nina del Rio. As far as teens experiencing homelessness in
New York City, you mentioned that it's kind of across
the board cities, rural areas, urban areas, it's the same
percentage that might be homeless. So are the kids that
we see, the young people that you might see that
are homeless in New York or don't see, are they
mostly from our area and is there some sort of
(08:43):
program or discussion about maybe reintroducing them to parents.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
Yes, we do talk to our young people about family
integration if it's an option. So that's a traditional question
we would ask when we're exploring how a young person
got here and what their path forward is going to
look like. Oftentimes, family reintegration isn't possible. There isn't a
safe family member who can support them, but sometimes there
(09:08):
is and sometimes we can intervene and help make some
of those situations easier. We can help a young person,
for example, apply for benefits that might help with some
of their living expenses, and they have a family member
who can help them with housing. So we do facilitate
a lot of those conversations. And that might be true
for a young person from New York City and from outside.
Speaker 4 (09:30):
New York is the center.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
Of the world, right and we are located only a
few blocks from Port Authority, so we do get young
people who are coming in from all over the world.
Speaker 4 (09:41):
Frankly, some of them might stay. This might be where
they're going.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Some of them might need help get into their next destination,
and that's something our staff can work with them onto.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
And for the average young person that you're working with,
how long are they involved with you and your services
before they're ready to sort of step out on their own.
Speaker 3 (09:58):
The average length of stay is about thirty days. I
always think that number is a little misleading, but because
there's another average that most of our average young person
will come to Covenant House three times, so we kind
of see it even out. And what looks a little
more traditional, is that a young person might come for
a few days. They might need, you know, just having
(10:20):
an emergency, need a place to stay, come in, be
familiar with our services, and then think, you know, I
got this, I'm good, I'm on my own, I just.
Speaker 4 (10:27):
Needed to crash. But where they're going might not be sustainable.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
So they might then have us in the back of
their minds and they can come back and say, actually,
weren't you talking about helping me get a job. Weren't
you talking about helping me find an apartment? Is that something?
Now I'm more interested and I'd like to stay a
little longer, so they might come back again.
Speaker 4 (10:48):
Our doors are always open.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
They can come back as many times as they need to,
and we'll stick with them throughout.
Speaker 2 (10:55):
So this sleepout is this Thursday. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
The sleepout is one of our big fundraising events for
Covenant House, and it is the night where we ask
people to give up their bed and sleep on the
streets of New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, the city near you,
your backyard, anywhere. As long as you're giving up your bed,
you can participate and sleep out for young people facing homelessness.
Speaker 4 (11:20):
So how it works.
Speaker 3 (11:22):
Is you sign up online, you create a fundraising page,
and you engage in this advocacy about your sleepout leading
up to the event. It's a really key part of it.
We don't want to pretend to be homeless. We don't
want this to be, you know, sort of an empty
act of like I'm spending one night on the street,
(11:42):
but I'm going to be safer.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
I'm going to be with my friends or colleagues.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
So this fundraising, awareness raising that comes with it is
part of the deal. Right You're saying to your friends,
like I me, Colleen, you know me. I'm going to
sleep on the street on the West side of Manhattan.
This is why I want you to know about the
young people at Covenant House who are homeless. There are
one hundred and fifty young people sleeping at Covenant House
(12:07):
in Manhattan. Each of them need a bed. I'm giving
up my bed so they can find one tonight. Will
you support me with a donation? And it's really powerful.
You see people react in ways that they might not otherwise.
They turn their attention to this issue that they might
not be familiar with, and then all of our sleepers
come together on Thursday, on the twenty first, for this beautiful.
Speaker 4 (12:29):
Evening of programming. They get to meet our young people
and some of our alumni. They get to.
Speaker 3 (12:33):
Meet our expert staff who are just on the front
lines of ending youth homelessness. And you hear these stories
all before you go and lay your head outside. So
by the time you get out there, it's chili, but
you understand the purpose, you understand what you're there for,
and it really has that extra meaning.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
We are getting into. We've actually been very fortunate in
a way. The weather's been nice, right, so it's getting
a little bit chilly, and it's going to feel like
you're really out in the elements. I think a little
bit coming up this week for people who have done
this who really had no idea what that was like. Right,
You just want to help and you decide to do
to sleep out. Maybe you have done it, what is
the response or what has sort of been the takeaway
(13:16):
that you have heard about this event.
Speaker 3 (13:19):
I have slipt out personally about nine times, and my
takeaway is that each year I do it, it's hard.
It doesn't get easier each time. There's always something different,
even if.
Speaker 4 (13:30):
The forecast is a little warmer.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
I'm telling you what, There's something about fifty degrees at
three am when you're sleeping on the concrete that just
feels colder than any other time of day. It's never comfortable,
And the best feeling in the world is getting back
to my apartment and taking a shower and going to bed,
and especially coming from this event where you're hearing these stories,
(13:56):
you're getting to meet these young people and realizing this
is what Covenant House. This feeling of getting into the
shower and feeling I'm warm again, of getting to go
back to my bed and really have a good night's
sleep because you don't sleep well. That relief is so
strong after only one night, after only a night when
I was safe, I knew where I was going the
(14:18):
next day. All of that just becomes so much more
tangible when you've done that one night yourself.
Speaker 2 (14:26):
In the New York metro area, the Sleepouse will be
outside of Jacob Jevett Center in Midtown, MetLife Stadium in
East Rutherford, and at Covenant Houses New Jersey Youth Engagement
Center in Newark. If someone isn't able to participate but
would like to contribute, what is your suggestion.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
You can sleep out from anywhere. You can sleep out
from your backyard, from your terrace, from your kitchen floor.
We have a toolkit to make it really meaningful and
impactful no matter what. And if that's not for you,
that's okay. We have other ways you can support. There
are thousands of people we're going to be sleeping out.
(15:01):
Making a donation to one of their sleepout pages is
just as impactful.
Speaker 2 (15:05):
To just wrap up briefly, you know. I think in
New York we see people on the streets all the time,
and especially when it's young people. Sometimes people think, why
don't they just get up and get a job, Why
don't they just go to school? How did they get there?
What would you say to that?
Speaker 3 (15:20):
I would say, come sleep out with us on Thursday
night and then give me a call at the end
of your day Friday, because it's hard and a lot
of us get up on Friday and go to work.
That feels like part of the sleepout experience where you
have to say, all right, I'm going to get through
the day just like a young person would and I'm cranky,
it's difficult, and I don't have to figure out where
(15:42):
my next meal is coming from or where I'm going
to sleep that night. So I think understanding how difficult
it really is to function day to day when your
basic needs are not being met, when you're in that
survival mode is really key. And that's where services like
Covenant House, where we can offer this trauma informed care
to a young person, say let's get you out of
(16:03):
this crisis, so then we can help you get a
job and move on to all the things, but we
have to get you out of this crisis situation.
Speaker 4 (16:10):
First.
Speaker 2 (16:11):
Our guest is Colleen Veldt of Covenant House. You can
find out more at Covenant House dot org, including details
about the sleepout this Thursday, November twenty First, thank you
for being on to Get Connected.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
Thank you so much, Tina.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
This has been Get Connected with Nina del Rio on
one oh six point seven light Fm. The views and
opinions of our guests do not necessarily reflect the views
of the station. If you missed any part of our
show or want to share it, visit our website for
downloads and podcasts at one oh six to seven lightfm
dot com. Thanks for listening.
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