Sex Charges Don’t Shake Faith in Covenant House

It was 9:30 p.m. Tuesday and time for the night meeting at Covenant House in Hollywood. More than 30 young people, mostly males, crowded the front offices, a row of semi-partitioned small rooms crammed with overstuffed furniture. In a few minutes they would be transported to hotels or shelters for the night, to be brought back to Covenant House in the morning.

Had any of them heard of Father Bruce Ritter? a counselor asked. Mildly interested, one youth offered, “Didn’t he found this program?” “Right.” “Does he live in L.A.?”

“New York. He has been the subject of some media inquiries,” the counselor began. He was briefing those assembled on the circumstances that led to Ritter’s announcement that day that he was taking a leave of absence from his duties as head of Covenant House, the nationwide system of shelters for street kids, runaways and troubled youths that he founded 22 years ago in New York.

The 62-year-old Franciscan priest is the subject of more than media inquiries. The Manhattan district attorney’s office and the Franciscan Order are investigating allegations that Ritter engaged in sexual acts with three young men in the program, and that he misused Covenant House funds.

On Tuesday, Father Conall McHugh of Union City, N.J., minister provincial of the Franciscans, directed Ritter “to begin a period of rest and recuperation without responsibility for Covenant House until this inquiry is completed.” On Wednesday, Covenant House named former New York City Schools Chancellor Frank Macchiarola to take over Ritter’s duties.

While the meeting continued in the front office, Anne Donahue, the 33-year-old director of Covenant House in Los Angeles, beckoned a visitor to follow her two doors down to a 20-bed shelter housed in a similar two-story tan stucco building. The people in the front office, she said, were the overflow crowd.

The shelter’s night meeting was already over. Upstairs in the lounge, five young men sprawled on couches and chairs watching the last segment of “Hang ‘Em High,” while down the corridor a few young men were settling in for the night.

Jason, 18, his hair still damp from the shower, welcomed visitors into his room. He had come to Los Angeles from North Carolina, he said, “to spend some quality time with my mom, but it didn’t work out that way.”

He had been living at the shelter for almost two months and had found a job transporting films between studios.

“This is a good program,” Jason said. Giving a look of recognition when Ritter’s name came up, he smiled, shrugged and said, “I wouldn’t know anything about that situation.”

Later, in her upstairs office, a beleaguered but calm Donahue described what it has been like trying to operate during the past two months, since the news of the district attorney’s investigation broke in New York

“It goes on. . . . They don’t stop coming,” she said, mentioning that three youths were being taken to the airport that night, one to be reunited with his family in St. Louis, one to join the Army in Florida, another to follow a job offer in Chicago.

“The most important thing right now is to focus on the mission. All of my energy is focused on that.”

The agency has been in Los Angeles for just over one year. It started operations with its outreach program, in which blue Covenant House vans patrol such places as Santa Monica Boulevard at night, bringing hot chocolate, sandwiches and offers of help to youths selling themselves on the street. Staff members estimate they have passed out 7,000 sandwiches, served 370 youths through programs at the center or referrals to other services, sent 214 children home to their families and, since the 20-bed shelter opened last November, housed 63 young men and women there, mainly 18- to 20-year-olds, referring younger teen-agers to available beds in other programs.

The staff, she said, is going ahead with plans to open a 60-bed shelter next year and is looking for facilities.

Acknowledging it has been a tough time, Donahue said: “I’m OK. I’ve been with Covenant House for 8 1/2 years. It’s not like I just started. I have a lot invested in the mission, the ministry. It hurts to see it attacked.”

The signs of her connection with the program were all around her as she spoke. Plaques and citations on the wall, a framed photo of her and Mother Teresa standing outside one of the blue vans, another photo of her and Ronald Reagan, framed with a letter from the former President to Ritter, saying that he and Nancy were delighted that Covenant House had come to Los Angeles.

Almost from the start, Covenant House has been surrounded by friends in high places and controversy. Ritter and his program have been praised by the Reagans, President Bush and other world and national leaders and celebrities. But along with the praise has come criticism--that the program is too big, with 100-bed shelters in some cities; too fat (its budget last year was $87 million, most of which was raised from direct-mail appeals), and too slick and connected to the ego of its charismatic founder.

Covenant House came to Los Angeles against considerable opposition from local service providers who voiced all of those criticisms.

A compromise of sorts was worked out, with Covenant House agreeing to coordinate with local agencies, form a board with residents and start with a small shelter, holding off on a larger one for two years.

Los Angeles Councilman Michael Woo was involved in those community negotiations. On Tuesday, calling the news of the investigation “tragic and shocking,” and “a fearful blow to the credibility of the organization,” Woo said: “Regardless of what happens with Father Ritter, I think Covenant House must go on in any case. It’s more than the work of one individual. . . . I’ve been impressed with the energy and vision Covenant House has brought to the kids on the streets of Hollywood.”

To Gabe Kruks, director of youth services at the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center in Hollywood, the criticism he had of the program last year--that it is unprofessional in its approach to social work--directly relates to the situation today.

“It’s easy to witch-hunt the most visible person in an organization. What has to be examined is the entire philosophy of an organization,” Kruks said. “The reaction is going to be, ‘Sex, sex, sex,’ I’m afraid. But, to me whether he slept with the kids is not the issue.

“(It’s) what was any staff person doing taking a kid home or being in a room (alone) with a kid (as Ritter has admitted doing). It’s that whole issue of boundaries. They violated their boundaries, period. . . . If I have any staff person developing a personal friendship (with a client), it’s out the door.”

Gary Yates directs the High Risk Youth Program at Childrens Hospital in Hollywood. As chairman of the Coordinating Council of Homeless Youth Services for Los Angeles County, a group of 50 organizations and agencies, he led opposition to Covenant’s House plans to open a 100-bed facility in Hollywood last year.

Saying he hoped the investigation of Ritter “will end up not well-founded,” he said Covenant House had been attending council meetings and coordinating on some issues.

He had visited its 20-bed shelter, the model he and Kruks strongly prefer, and said he found it “a tight facility, well laid out and staffed.”

The real test will come, he said, when they make their move to a larger facility. He opposes that, and he reiterated his conviction, as did Kruks, that the real need for youth shelters in Los Angeles is outside Hollywood, in such under-served areas as South Central Los Angeles.

Covenant House California’s board chairman, the Rev. Dickson Druary of First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, was undeterred in his support and said he felt strongly that Covenant House would continue to serve “the needs of the children of L.A., and clearly there is an abundance of them.”

Describing herself as concerned about the effect on the children and morale, Donahue said: “We told the kids right away, the first day it broke in December. We wanted them to hear it from us rather than rumors.”

The kids worried about what it would mean for them, for the program, and she said they rallied behind Ritter. He visited the Hollywood shelter last month, and after his return to New York, the shelter residents made him a card, complete with drawings and messages. It was full of “hang in there’s” “we’re behind you’s” and “God bless you’s.”

Among them was a message from someone who signed himself Alexander: “To Father Bruce. May the truth prevail.”