Covenant House Toronto
The Toronto location is the largest agency of its kind in Canada, with 80 per cent of their annual funding coming from donors.
[citation needed] The house serves as many as 300 youth a day regardless of their race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or the circumstances that have brought them to their doors.
Covenant House also offers services such as education, after-care, counseling, health care, employment assistance, and job training.
[citation needed] Covenant House began its operations in Toronto after Cardinal Carter gathered the local community to support children sleeping outside his office.
In 2010, the shelter achieved another milestone by launching a renovated job center, on-site adult education, and an Urban Response Model, which is an anti-sex trafficking plan.
Since then, Covenant House has established itself by employing 200 professionals at the facility to support the youth of Toronto in any issue that seems fit.
Without proper housing, full-fledged meals, clean clothes and showers, it is hard for a youth to mobilize towards a good future because they suffer from a lack of basic necessities.
[5] At Covenant House, it is their mission to end youth homelessness by offering a wide number of services and support.
[3] According to research, that is not always the case due to the experiences and trauma that plague a child's mind of not being comfortable with their current living situation.
The main cause of this issue focuses on how the homeless lack basic education, life skills, job experience, and stability to keep their employment.
Covenant House believes that kids who do not have a support system and necessities have a hard time seeking a job and keeping employment.
At Toronto's Covenant House, troubled youth are provided with fresh meals, a clean bed, and a haven from outside danger.
These rooms are well maintained that provide the youth with basic amenities such as underwear, socks, shampoo, pajamas, toothbrush, and bodywash.
The program also enables parents to get involved with their kids by joining family counseling sessions and receiving advice from a counselor.
[11] The BensKids Health Center is an onsite clinic that helps youth unhoused overcome the physical, emotional and psychological tolls of living on the streets.
[12] The clinic is staffed with five nurses, three family doctors, volunteer massage therapists and counselors; one adolescent medicine specialist and two psychiatrists.
[13] Covenant House Toronto provides different workplace programs that help youth gain experience in the outer world.
Covenant House pays for all the fees for all students to achieve their job placement, which includes the Food Handlers certificate.
[17] Covenant House also offers presentations and workshops to students, health care professionals, transport and security staff, child welfare and social workers and other stakeholders.
[18] In 2017, Covenant House launched a five-year, $10 million campaign to bring more awareness to sex trafficking in Ontario.
[19] The organization published a four-minute video explaining on real experiences of everyday teens being the victims of sex trafficking in the province.
