Essay Sample on Covenant House Cares for Homeless Youth in US

Introduction

Covenant House of New York is a privately funded agency that runs in the US facilitating the provision of various human care needs for the young hopeless and helpless people. Today, Covenant House if the largest agency that is privately funded that deals with an array of services like providing shelter, food, and immediate crisis care among other provisions for the poor and desperate. It serves the youth mainly aged between 16 and 24 years who face homelessness and human trafficking. Since it was founded, the entity has contributed immensely to crisis management for the young people and participated in solving challenges facing the United States. However, the entity has not been voided of challenges including sexual allegations, financial crises, and mismanagement among others (Lee et al. 2013). Such predicaments have led to the poor performance of the largest non-governmental entity supporting life for the youth. Therefore, there is a need to assess a possible adaptive change that can ensure that they meet their organizational goals and objectives. Considering the challenges, the Covenant House of New York are facing to meet their mission despite the noble work they are doing of saving the desperate youth, it is imperative to assess the adaptive change needs to make recommendations on how best they can improve their services.

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Description of the Agency

Located in the midtown of Manhattan, the New York Covenant House agency has open doors anytime for young people in need of help regardless of their religious background, race, gender, or sexual orientation. Therefore, the entity is built of trauma-informed principles hence takes a holistic approach to help young people to become independent. Covenant House mainly offers the basic needs to the youth and provides care for the homeless hence their program is designed to transition them into independent adulthood that is free from the risk of future homelessness (Barbanel, 1990).

Therefore, the agency has been running programs and services that include healthcare, educational support, college scholarships, drug abuse treatments, and transitional living programs among others. Annually, the agency provides homes for more than 6,000 young people with sanctuary as well as structure. Since its establishment in the late 1960s by Reverend Bruce Ritter, A Franciscan priest, the organization has grown to the largest private entity have provided street outreach programs and emergency shelter.

The Potential for Change

Improvement of the community especially helping them in the most critical situations is a tough task. The Covenant House of New York is a community organizer and its evident that they cannot do that alone. There is a need to engage different stakeholders to make the place a healthy place where people feel safe and care for. To achieve greater success, there might be a need for partnerships with other community service providers. This calls for an adaptive change that will seek to address the most critical issues on the community, environment, and save the society (Heifetz, Linsky, & Grashow, 2009). However, this needs adaptive leadership to formulate a comprehensive community approach to create a better future for all through the pursuance of the greatest opportunities for the community inclusively uniting people, institutions, as well as resources to produce not only significant but also lasting results.

It should be noted that the organization focuses on a community plan that aims at ending youth homelessness. Therefore, there have been outreach programs that seek to find the children in crisis and build a trusting relationship with the street youth. Considering the brutality of street life, there is a need to develop ways that are more effective and widen the gap to reach even more people. Such developments need adaptive changes that can transform the institution to greater successes.

Forecasted Trends

Affordable housing has been a major problem in the United States especially for young people who have limited resources. In the year 2017, Bachega (2018) reported that over 500,000 people in the US are homeless. Some of these people sleep in their cars, homeless shelters while others just in any space that they can afford for the night. Although the problem has been considered not mainly to be poverty, these people can hardly afford to rent shelter. Considering that most Americans are likely to spend almost 50% of their salaries in housing, the younger generation which is not financially stable has more challenges.

Therefore, these trends demonstrate the challenges that the society is facing hence necessitating policies, government's attention, and private entities to help the needy and helpless in the society. Additionally, society in the US suffers from poverty for the youth. 2018 data by the National Statistics of Census Bureau showed that about 12.8 million Americans live in poverty (Bachega, 2018). Although this was about 450,000 fewer than the previous years, the statistics show a huge challenge in the US society that needs immediate as well as long-lasting solutions.

Impact of Forecasted Trends on the Human Services System

Poverty and helplessness among young people in the United States is a rampant problem that has a significant impact on the human services system and society at large. Therefore, the trends show that poverty is a public health concern (Duffee, Kuo, & Gitterman, 2016). While family income is a key determinant regarding the healthy development of children, children in families with limited resources have less security regarding the living conditions. Therefore, poverty is a key determinant of the health disparities hence developmental problems. Such people will experience increased difficulties on the self-regulation, and executive functions such as impulsivity, inattention, and poor peer relationship.

Injuries are also expected to be on the rise due to poor living (Duffee, Kuo, & Gitterman, 2016). In some instances, they are caused by the use of drugs and substance abuse. It has been established that the economic strains on young people are a prediction of substance abuse. Studies in the US have listed parenting and poverty among the major contributors to drug abuse. Therefore, the social trends indicate that the Covenant House of New York may need to deal more on poverty to alleviate medical problems and cases of drug and substance abuse.

Prioritizes the Impact of Forecasted Trends

The Covenant House of New York has been offering important services to the society with its numerous programs that seek to offer shelter and food and a myriad of other services to the helpless youth. However, their approach may need readjustment based on the assessed needs and trends that are anticipated from the society. The analysis showed that poverty is a major cause of the housing problem in the United States (Bachega, 2018). Americans use between 30% and 50% of their salaries in housing. Therefore, young people who are less financially stable do not have the ability to support their houses or even rent decent houses.

Despite the effort by the government to implement policies such as the Housing Choice Voucher program, the youths hardly benefit. Such young people have indulged in drugs abuse due to the social challenges of poverty. Therefore, although shelter is the primary concern for Covenant House of New York among the young generation, the trends show that they should prioritize in giving young people opportunities for jobs so that they can afford their own basic needs. To achieve, the organization may need collaboration with other entities especially governmental entities which are tasked with the social responsibilities of their citizens.

Conclusion

The Covenant House of New York is a massive entity in the United States that engages in various activities of saving the youth and the helpless needy young people. From the analysis, it can be established that the America society has been suffering from a lack of shelter which triggered the organization to help the population. Since its establishment in the late 60s, the entity has housed and helped young people with food among other social amenities without discrimination of race, religion, or sexual orientation. However, it can be noted that society is likely to continue having more problems especially of drug and substance abuse among the poor young people. The major problem that might be contributing to all these social challenges can be considered to be poverty. Considering the high cost of shelter in the United States, young people are even more disadvantaged as they have fewer finances to support their housing. Therefore, the organization may need to change their approach and solve the human services issues of poverty which can solve all the other issues they are dealing with.

References

Bachega, H. (2018). Homelessness in US: a deepening crisis on the streets of America. BBC News. Retrieved from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45442596

Barbanel, J. (1990). After the Scandal: Revisiting Covenant House - A Special Report: Reeling from Its Own Crisis, Covenant House Scales Back. The New York Times. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/1990/04/28/nyregion/after-scandal-revisiting-covenant-house-special-report-reeling-its-own-crisis.html

Covenant House of New York. Youth homeless shelter in New York. Retrieved from: https://www.covenanthouse.org/homeless-shelters/new-york-new-york

Duffee, J., Kuo, A., & Gitterman, B. (2016). Poverty and Child Health in the United States. American Academy of Pediatrics, 137(4). https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/137/4/e20160339

Heifetz, R. A., Linsky, M., & Grashow, A. (2009). The Practice of Adaptive Leadership: Tools and Tactics for Changing Your Organization and the World. Boston: Harvard Business Review Press.

Lee, C., McClernon, F., Kollins, S., Prybol, K., & Fuemmeler, B. (2013). Childhood Economic Strains in Predicting Substance Use in Emerging Adulthood: Mediation Effects of Youth Self-Control and Parenting Practices. Journal of Pediatric Psychology, 38(10), 1130-1143. https://doi.org/10.1093/jpepsy/jst056