Youth Haven Struggles to Recover From Scandal : Charity: Donations to Covenant House plunged in the wake of sex charges against its ex-leader. New managers are trying to repair the agency’s image.

The kids--homeless, drug-addicted, pregnant, HIV-positive--never stopped coming. The money to help them--that’s another story.

Three years after the Father Bruce Ritter sex scandal, the disgraced priest’s legacy is twofold: Covenant House, his haven for troubled teens, endures. But its fund raising remains hamstrung by his sexual misdeeds with the charity’s male clients.

“The fact that we survived is nothing short of a miracle,” said Denise Scelzo, senior vice president for development at the Manhattan-based agency.

The numbers bear her out. In fiscal 1990--the last year before the Ritter scandal exploded in an endless stream of headlines and investigations--Covenant House had a $98-million budget, more than 90% of it from public donations.

The next year, donations dropped nearly 25% and the budget was slashed by $22 million. For fiscal 1992, the budget was up slightly to $80 million, still millions below the Ritter-era Covenant House; thousands of past donors have written the agency off permanently.

“We’re hopeful. We’re going to make it now. We know that. We’re very careful how we spend money,” said Sister Mary Rose McGeady, who wasn’t so sure about the future when she replaced Ritter on Sept. 1, 1990.

The 64-year-old nun recalls her first days at Covenant House: “When I came on board, we were really in the doldrums. I came on in September, after the summer had been kind of scary.”

McGeady immediately went to work on two fronts: trying to boost donations while working to repair public relations.

“There were two effects of the scandal. There were a cadre of people who were just disenchanted, and very angry at Father Ritter, so they just left,” Scelzo said.

“And then there was the other group of people that needed convincing. They needed to get to know Sister Mary Rose, they needed to know that the organization was back on its feet.”

The scandal never affected the number of youths who turned to Covenant House for help: There are still more than 22,000 housed each year around the world. Every night in Manhattan, an average of 309 youths show up unannounced seeking food, shelter and medical care.

The charity was the creation of the charismatic Ritter, who founded and tirelessly promoted Covenant House for 22 years. He started the group’s primary fund-raising pitch: a monthly letter, written and signed by Ritter, personally appealing for donations.

But the foundation of Covenant House began to crumble in December, 1989, when reports surfaced of Ritter’s sexual impropriety with a youth who came to the agency for help. Although Ritter denied the allegations, the number of accusers grew; Ritter finally resigned on Feb. 27, 1990.

A report commissioned by Covenant House later found five residents who claimed that they had sex with Ritter, along with a sixth resident and four employees who said they rejected Ritter’s sexual overtures. The priest has continued to deny the charges.

For the kids who still turn to Covenant House, Ritter isn’t even a distant memory. Lee Rees came north from Wilmington, Del., and wound up in Covenant House trying to beat a crack addiction that nearly destroyed his life.

“In Delaware, I didn’t hear anything about Covenant House. I never heard about it,” said Rees, 20, who began using drugs at age 13.

Even local kids like 21-year-old Sean Plummer of Brooklyn don’t know the Ritter story. Plummer’s only knowledge of Covenant House prior to his arrival was from a television ad featuring rock star Jon Bon Jovi.

They won’t hear about Ritter from the folks around Covenant House, which was ordered to sever all ties with the priest after a state probe. The founder’s name appears nowhere in the charity’s annual report, and McGeady is signing the monthly appeals for donations.

Leslie Gersing of the state attorney general’s office, which oversees New York charities, said Covenant House has a clean bill of health since Ritter’s departure.

For McGeady, the work of repairing Covenant House’s reputation (and filling its coffers) continues. On a blustery day, she took time out from an interview--twice--to provide tours to donors who stopped by the main building on West 41st Street.

She’s made more than 300 speaking appearances in the last two years, with another scheduled for that afternoon. They help bring in the cash; Covenant House has never needed help bringing in the youths.

“We never finish,” McGeady said. “It’s amazing how many kids there are.”