Haven Offers Special Aid to Army of Teen Runaways

The streets of Hollywood are brimming with them, runaway teen-agers strung out on drugs and forced into a life of prostitution.

Most are victims of physical and emotional abuse, unable to escape the grip of their addictions yet desperate to somehow free themselves from a grim existence.

The fable of a sun-splashed Los Angeles lures thousands of runaways--as many as 10,000, according to some estimates--to the city every year. Fleeing rejection in their own homes, they all too often fall into despair for lack of education or training.

Some eventually seek help through crisis-intervention programs. Others, however, are turned away.

It is at that juncture where the people at Covenant House, a private social welfare agency, swing into action.

Wide-Ranging Program Founded

Founded about 20 years ago by Bruce Ritter, a Franciscan priest, Covenant House has rescued an estimated 100,000 street kids in New York, Toronto, Houston, Ft. Lauderdale, New Orleans and Guatemala.

It has now come to Los Angeles, where on Dec. 10 a team of Covenant House workers embarked on what will be a nightly outreach program in Hollywood, driving up and down seedy boulevards in a van and offering hot cocoa, cold sandwiches and on-the-spot counseling to street children.

Anne Donahue, executive director of the agency, said that, in just the first few nights, the counselors encountered dozens of street children, including a teen-age boy from Michigan who had turned to prostitution.

“He met a kid who told him about hustling and he ended up on Santa Monica Boulevard,” she said.

Another prostitute, a 17-year-old girl, “literally snatched a sandwich out of a (counselor’s) hand. She was in very, very bad shape,” Donahue said.

‘We Must Build a Future’

The establishment of Covenant House in Los Angeles was announced Dec. 14 by former Treasury Secretary William E. Simon, a Covenant House board member.

“We must build a future that holds out true hope for the kids that are forced to turn to the streets . . . for survival because they have no other place to turn,” Simon said in a speech before the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce.

His goal is highly ambitious.

Covenant House will provide runaways the “second chance to evolve from our society’s refuse to its workers and managers,” he said.

The street outreach program, funded by the Los Angeles Junior Chamber of Commerce, will operate every night from 8 p.m. to 3 a.m. A second van is expected to begin operating in Anaheim and Long Beach next year.

Along with the outreach program, Covenant House has a nationwide hot line and is developing plans to open a crisis center and long-term residential program by 1990.

The hot line, called “Nineline,” has received 1 million calls since its inception in 1987. By calling 1 (800) 999-9999, runaways are referred to an agency in their area and, in cities with a van program, a hot line counselor can send the van to the caller.

Although a network of welfare agencies exists in Los Angeles, the city is still desperately short of the kind of specialized help runaways need to make it off the streets, Donahue said.

Many who ask for help are turned away from shelters for lack of bed space, she said. According to official estimates, 2,681 children were given shelter locally but another 3,034 were turned away from October, 1987, to September, 1988.

The opening of the Covenant House crisis shelter will, at least partly, answer that dilemma.

Seeking Site for Center

Covenant House is seeking property in Hollywood where it can erect or rehabilitate a building to house its center. When completed, the shelter will accommodate 100 teen-agers.

Hollywood is the most appropriate location for the shelter because “we need to be based in the area where the largest number of homeless kids gather, and where they are at highest risk of exploitation,” Donahue said.

The shelter will be open 24 hours a day to any youth under 21 who wants to get off the street, and will operate under Covenant House’s “open intake” policy.

That policy, Donahue said, means there will be no special “type” of youngster Covenant House is willing to help.

“We have an open-door policy. All they have to do is say they want help. Once they’ve started in the program, we’ll do as much as possible to help them,” she said.

With its first goal of establishing a trusting relationship, that help can include counseling, social work, medical, legal, educational and vocational services.

Youths will be expected to commit to a plan with their counselor, to meet an evening curfew and to avoid drugs. The long-term residential program, called “Rights of Passage,” will be available to older teens hoping to further their education.