Responding to Challenge
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, West Virginia, like much of the country, experienced economic devastation. Across the state, coal mines and steel mills shut down, resulting in the loss of thousands of blue collar jobs and creating a sense of hopelessness and despair.
This profound decline in the economy compounded the problems of inadequate benefits for low-income people and an already existing lack of safe, affordable and adequate housing. West Virginia began to experience what was becoming a growing national problem - homelessness.
A soup kitchen which was started in 1977 and now serves two meals a day was the catalyst for the creation of Covenant House, the realized dream of a dedicated and generous group of lay people and clergy who bonded together to form the Charleston Interdenominational Council on Social Concerns.
The all-volunteer Council pledged to work together across all barriers and boundaries to meet the needs of those who were homeless and at risk of being homeless. Their commitment dictated actions which were born of challenges, reflection and planning. They wanted to act and not simply talk.
Their response focused on two of the most basic human needs - food and clothing. These needs were the first of many which would be addressed by Covenant House, envisioned as the central resource center for the supporting religious communities.
Covenant House was established in 1981 as a daytime shelter for the homeless, a drop-in center where people could shower, wash and dry their clothes, get emergency assistance, clothing and food. It is an independent non-profit, community-based organization, which is neither affiliated with nor associated with the Covenant House of New York.
In the years that followed, as more and more people found themselves without homes, jobs or hope, a nationwide bureaucracy was developed to channel funds aimed at helping alleviate homelessness. Organizations which began with the same noble intentions as Covenant House sometimes altered their direction and began making decisions based on money that was available rather than services that were needed by the homeless community.
Covenant House remained true to its objectives, which often meant the agency was standing on the cutting edge of social concerns. Empire building and the consolidation of services were never issues. For example, when money was available to build shelters, Covenant House did not get into the shelter business. It helped create a shelter for women and children, but this project, like many others, was spun off and operated independently.
Covenant House demonstrated the need for a free health clinic for the poor. This, too, was spun off. Ahead of government and many social agencies, Covenant House recognized the problem of rural homelessness and helped create locally-based community organizations to address the desperate need for decent, affordable housing for low-income families. These organizations also were spun off and control remains in their local communities.
When the devastating AIDS disease began to make its way into West Virginia, Covenant House bought and rehabilitated a house, creating the first residence in the state for people who were HIV-positive. Two more houses were purchased later, and Covenant House was instrumental in developing a statewide coalition to provide housing and services for people living with HIV/AIDS.
Long before welfare reform was considered by Congress, Covenant House developed a program to help
single mothers get college-level job training and/or education and decent and affordable housing. This program was later adapted to rural Lincoln County where Covenant House has worked with two groups of Head Start mothers to help them get their general equivalency diplomas (GEDs) and move toward self-sufficiency through full-time jobs and/or a college education.
These programs were developed before they were popular, before they had become mainstream social concepts and sometimes in the face of considerable community opposition. They often were developed before Covenant House had located a source of funds to make them possible. But they were developed with the confidence that money could be found if problems needed to be addressed.
At times Covenant House has had to change direction because of the lack of funding. For example, the rural program envisioned the creation of non-profit housing organizations across the state but the agency was unable to raise the funds necessary to achieve the goal. Nonetheless, along the way, two strong non-profits were formed and continue to provide housing for low-income families and the contacts made in the rural area led to the creation of Challenge West Virginia, the education program that united the rural project and the single mothers projects. As an extension of that effort, Covenant House, in cooperation with one rural school district that desperately wants to do an effective job for its children, is developing a model community literacy program aimed at helping at-risk children succeed in school.
So while Covenant House consistently has been in touch with local, state, national and international issues, the agency has been in the forefront of such issues in West Virginia. In a world where some have power because of position, class, race or gender and where language abounds that separates people ("higher ups," "underlings," "helper," "the helped"), Covenant House attempts to operate under principles of equality, mutuality and collegiality on all levels. A rigid hierarchy of authority does not exist and, in fact, is viewed as counter productive for the organization. It is Covenant House's belief that all are entitled to a sharing of power in decisions which affect their lives.
As Covenant House plans for the future, one primary goal is to maintain the flexibility that has allowed the organization to respond to needs that arise - who could have predicted AIDS, for instance, and who can guess what equally frightening and overwhelming problems may emerge in the next century.
Whatever those problems may be and however difficult the solutions, Covenant House's goal is to be there, standing with the poor and oppressed, helping define the needs, assisting with the creation of programs and alternatives, and, above all, helping powerless people find their voices so that ultimately those who most intimately know about homelessness and AIDS and single parenthood and educational equality will be the ones who will lead us to the answers. Justice is what it is called, and it is our vision for a better world.
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Covenant House, 600 Shrewsbury Street, Charleston, WV 25301-1211
phone (304) 344-8053 fax (304) 344-4331 e-mail: Contact Us