Donate here , or participate in the renowned Sleep Out to help raise funds. You can also volunteer in a number of ways; learn how here. There are dozens of other ways to help the homeless in Philadelphia. Check out our Do Something guide to learn how. BY Roxanne Patel Shepelavy. Late last year, Philadelphia celebrated an accomplishment years in the making and well-worth applauding: Eliminating veteran homelessness. And Philadelphia is a national model for how to keep track of, and provide services to, adults who chronically live outdoors.
But there is an epidemic of homelessness in this city which we have barely even begun to tackle: Teenagers. Bianca Cruz can tell you about that. She had a childhood of anguishβparents in separate households who emotionally and physically abused her, made worse when she came out as a lesbian as a teenager. At 18, she attempted suicide. She had no one. She had nowhere to go.
She had no hope. Cruz was headed towards just one thing: The streets, where she says she knows she would have ended up on drugs. The shelter kept her safe, and warm, and well-fed, and offered an array of social services. But at its core, Cruz realizes now, it gave her something far greater: A family.
Now 26, Cruz has spent much of the last eight years in and out of Covenant Houseβas a resident in its shelter and its transitional housing, and as a volunteer. She has had setbacks, made poor decisions that have cost her.
But Covenant House had her back. A branch of a year-old national organization, Covenant House Pennsylvania opened in It now serves adolescents a year. The teens who walk in to Covenant House are the ones lucky enough to know where to go, and desperate enough to ask for help.
