Covenant House California is a nonprofit youth homeless shelter that provides sanctuary and support for young people overcoming homelessness & trafficking, ages 18 to 24. For over 30 years, Covenant House California has been meeting the needs of youth experiencing homelessness in Northern & Southern California. Covenant House California provides a full continuum of services to meet the physical, emotional, educational, vocational and spiritual well-being of young people, in order to provide them with the best chance for success in independence.

We believe that no young person deserves to be homeless; that every young person in California deserves shelter, food, clothing, education … and most importantly, to be loved. And we believe that it is our responsibility, as a community, to ensure that young people are given the opportunities that they deserve to achieve their dreams.

Source: Nonprofit submitted responses

Goal One: Serving More Youth Experiencing Homelessness. CHC is committed to being innovative and maximizing our resources to increase our capacity to serve more homeless youth in relevant and sustainable ways.

Goal Type: Grow, expand, scale or increase access to the existing programs and services.

Goal Two: Improved Youth Well-Being. CHI is committed to doing everything possible to ensure that each young person that we work with has the opportunity to leave The Cov better off than when they arrived.

Goal Type: Focus on core programs to achieve mission and scale back on programs not seen as core.

Goal Three: CHC as a Leader in Youth Homelessness Advocacy. As a premier provider, CHC will be a leading voice in advocating for the issues affecting youth and create solutions to help end youth homelessness.

Goal Type: This goal reflects our commitment to further our advocacy work for our organization and or cause area.

Describe an investment in leadership

In 2021, CHC's leadership team and board participated in a Core Capacity Study with TCC Group, an outside evaluator. This study provided insight into where we needed to focus our leadership development efforts and resources to build greater agency capacity. The study was reviewed and implemented into our strategic planning efforts. Our leadership team focuses on professional development as a group in bi-weekly meetings using tools such as books, surveys, and mentorship to help guide our professional growth. Another way we invest in leadership development is through a bi-annual two-day leadership retreat, where we gather to strategize around youth and staff feedback collected. Lastly, all members of the leadership team participate in regular role-specific trainings throughout the year to ensure we are always at the forefront of best practices in our field.

This organization mobilizes for mission in the following ways:

• Strategic Partnerships

• Networks of Collective Impact Efforts

• Thought Leadership

• Raising Awareness

• Community Building

• Policy Advocacy

What are this organization’s external mobilizaton efforts?

Our staff and leadership team are recognized as experts in the field of serving children and youth. Our team are frequently featured speakers at local, state and federal conferences on homelessness, human trafficking and child welfare. Our team serves as panelists and serves on various boards to support evaluation efforts and advance the understanding of specialized housing solutions for young people. CHC has many strategic partners throughout the state who we join with to serve and provide advocacy within our field. We provide training and liaising with key constituents in the community (law enforcement, school staff, other community providers, etc.) to create awareness around the issues leading to homelessness and human trafficking, develop referrals for our services, and to assist with prevention through education.

This past year, the most pressing external changes have been the impacts of the pandemic. Local Health Departments have implemented stringent quarantine and intake holds on and off throughout the year at our congregate living sites. To adapt under this new challenge, we implemented training on vaccinations and incentives to promote more of our staff to safeguard our programs by participating in vaccination clinics held at our sites, in order to move towards herd immunity. In early 2021, our local Public Health Departments began requiring proof of vaccination of staff. Due to this requirement, we moved to mandate the vaccination for our team, and are now 100% fully vaccinated, allowing CHC to ensure mission sustainability. Another important way we are adapting is through increased focus on equity, inclusion, and diversity. CHC is committed to maintaining a Board of Directors, Leadership and Staff that reflect our agency’s commitment and represent the youth and community we serve. We urge our partners, vendors, and supporters to make the same commitment. CHC understands that diversity means many different things to many different people and defines it broadly to be inclusive of many different elements of human groups, but to focus particularly on: Racial and ethnic groups, Gender Identity and Expression, Sexual Orientation, and People with Disabilities. Our objectives are to improve equity through promoting justice, impartiality, and fairness within the procedures, processes, and distribution of resources at CHC, and to increase inclusion and foster belonging which ensures diverse individuals can fully participate in agency decision-making processes.