COVENANT HOUSE ALASKA

With a mission “to serve suffering children of the street, and to protect and safeguard all children," Covenant House Alaska (CHA) opened its doors in 1988 as a shelter for homeless youth (ages 13 to 20) in Anchorage. Over the years CHA has grown from an emergency shelter to an organization that provides a system of transformative care that helps youth attain self-sufficiency. More than 26,000 youth have walked through our doors. Some come for just a bed for the night, but many also receive medical care, help getting back into school, family reunification, or services that lead to independence through education and employment.

Most services are delivered at our Youth Engagement Center (YEC), a multipurpose facility that houses our continuum of care. The primary program is a 60-bed emergency shelter which is open 7 days a week, 24 hours a day. The shelter provides a safe place to meet the basic needs of homeless, trafficked and at-risk youth: shelter, food, clothing and crisis resolution. A non-residential Drop-In Center provides walk-in services to youth including employment and education assistance, on-site health care, counseling, phone and mail services and case management. A Street Outreach Team operates out the of YEC and provides basic services to youth on the street to help meet their immediate needs while providing a gateway to our shelter services or other stable, safe places to stay. Three transitional living programs operate off-site; one is for single youth (ages 18-21) and two other programs are for single young mothers (ages 18-21) and their children. Other programs include Education + Employment Services, a Wellness Center (primary health care clinic), substance abuse and mental health counseling, life skills training and youth enrichment including art, music, and physical activity. All services are delivered through a positive youth development framework and are trauma-informed, utilizing evidence-based practices with all staff receiving ongoing training.

CHA's vision is to provide a system of transformative care for homeless, runaway, and trafficked youth -- a system that includes a continuum of services and actively evaluates the effectiveness of our efforts. Services begin with street outreach as our first point of engagement, to emergency shelter, and when youth are stable enough, participation in transitional housing program(s) and aftercare. Support services such as medical, behavioral health, education, employment including financial literacy, legal, youth leadership/advocacy and access to art, music, and physical activity are provided onsite at our 42,000 sq.ft. Youth Engagement Center. We've committed to working with partners in the community and encouraging them to deliver their services in our Youth Engagement Center, on-site to minimize duplication of efforts, the barriers to access our youth traditionally experience, and to be deliberate about engaging in the efforts truly needed to end youth homelessness. CHA has a long history of providing shelter and support services to homeless, runaway and trafficked youth in Alaska and has developed a rich continuum of residential and support services to equip youth to move from a state of surviving to one of thriving.

CHA has been working with homeless, trafficked and at-risk youth since 1988, and we provide a robust continuum of services that address all of the domains of a young person's life. Over the years CHA has grown from an emergency shelter to an organization that provides a system of transformative care that helps youth attain self-sufficiency. More than 26,000 youth have walked through our doors. All services are delivered through a positive youth development framework and are trauma-informed, utilizing evidence-based practices with all staff receiving ongoing training.

Covenant House Alaska's innovative methods and leadership have gained the attention and investment of other funders. Last year, CHA received a prestigious grant from the Annie E. Casey Foundation as part of their national Learn and Earn to Achieve Potential (LEAP) Initiative to bolster our Education + Employment Services program. CHA was one of 10 organizations chosen out of over 200 applicants in the U.S. to implement this initiative. Through the LEAP Initiative, CHA has implemented Jobs for America's Graduates (JAG), an evidence-based curriculum designed to help youth graduate and then transition into quality jobs. The JAG model is geared toward youth who are not in school, with a focus on youth from foster care and juvenile justice systems. JAG has been implemented in 32 states, and in 2013-2014 it demonstrated a nationwide graduation rate of 93%.

In 2018, Anchorage was honored to be one of 10 cities nationwide selected by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to implement its new Youth Homelessness Demonstration Project (YHDP), a national two-year pilot program which includes $1.5 million in funding each year for Anchorage organizations to target unaddressed gaps in resources that contribute to youth homelessness. Covenant House Alaska led the processes and community conversations that led to Anchorage's application for this award, and has been identified as the Lead Agency. Along with other youth service providers in the community, the goal is to identify new, innovative programs and strategies to end youth homelessness that will be a model for communities across the nation.