Bright Beginnings at Covenant House

When he was 17, Don Wyman dropped out of school and ran away from his home in Northern California because he couldn’t get on with his stepfather. He drifted south, drawn by the magic name of Hollywood, a magnet for runaway kids from across the country. But Hollywood’s magic was an illusion. Within a few months, Wyman was ragged, hungry, sick and homeless, like several thousand other sad adolescents who haunt the boulevard of lost dreams.

What saved Wyman was his discovery of Covenant House California, a nonprofit, residential Catholic social service agency that has operated in Hollywood since 1988, first in temporary facilities on Hollywood Boulevard, now in a vividly colored $10-million complex on Western Avenue just south of Sunset Boulevard. Wyman first went to live in Covenant House in 1993 and recently returned for a second stay. “Without Covenant House I’d be sleeping under a bridge, or maybe dead,” he said. “Here, the staff really cares about you and your future.” He is now studying for a degree in computer graphics at Los Angeles City College.

Today, about 4,000 young people are homeless in Hollywood, says Fred Ali, director of Covenant House. “Mostly, they’re in this situation because they’ve been emotionally, physically or sexually abused. They have no job skills, they’re addicted to drugs and alcohol, a high proportion are HIV-positive, and many suffer from serious depressions leading to attempted suicide.”

The new Covenant House building is in a triangular enclave southwest of the intersection between Western and Sunset and the Hollywood Freeway. This area houses a long-standing social service community, including the Assistance League of Southern California.

An international youth service organization with facilities in New York, Houston, Fort Lauderdale, New Orleans and Anchorage, Covenant House specializes in caring for a particular segment of Hollywood’s homeless youths: those 18 to 20 years old. This group tends to fall between the cracks of the public social service system since, at 18, adolescents are generally no longer eligible for foster care and other juvenile programs, and adult services deal with those who are 21 and older.

For 75 live-in residents and hundreds of others who visit daily, the Hollywood Covenant House is a bright beacon of hope in a gray landscape. Its dramatic, funnel-shaped entry on Western Avenue is a vivid yellow vault supported by blue pillars and red walls. Welcoming and playful, it looks as if it were made of oversized building blocks.

“The central imagery has to do with the concept of sanctuary,” says architect Clifton Allen of Meyer & Allen Associates, a firm noted for its public buildings, including the new police station in North Hollywood and the headquarters for the Southern California Air Quality Management District in Diamond Bar. “Its model is a monastic cloister--a protected enclosure where stressed-out kids can find refuge and prepare themselves to deal with the rough world beyond the walls. The bright colors are intended to give them a feeling that they’re special, not social outcasts.”

Painted in bright reds, yellows, purples and turquoise, Covenant House’s two-story complex features crisp roof profiles and strong, uncluttered walls in a modern version of the old California missions filtered through the sensibility of famed Mexican architect Luis Barragan.

The building has opened in stages, and First Lady Hillary Clinton is scheduled to speak at formal ceremonies May 30.

Covenant House’s crisis care program allows kids to stay for an average of 21 days while receiving health services, psychological assessment, substance abuse counseling and HIV testing. The primary aim is to help young people get back on their feet; if they can’t or won’t return home, the clients are placed in drug rehabilitation facilities, residential vocational training programs or are moved into Covenant House’s transitional living quarters.

When they enter Covenant House, the homeless young men and women are offered a bath and a bed and a 24-hour respite before going through the primary intake interview. Each entrant is assigned a case manager, who provides counseling throughout his or her stay, which may last a year.

In the other main program, for transitional living, young people live in Covenant House while they finish school or work at a job. Titled “Rites of Passage,” the program accommodates the residents in a communal setting while building up the confidence they need to survive in the outside world. They share airy, two- or four-person bedrooms connected to communal rooms supervised by the staff.

Most communal rooms look out on one of the series of courtyards that thread through the complex. The main courtyard, which can be used for a range of activities, from basketball to public meetings, is dominated by a free-standing elevator shaft painted bright yellow. A small open-air chapel / performance space with wooden benches forms the northern boundary.

Covenant House’s programs are highly regarded in the Hollywood community. “They put these lost kids back into society and make them fit for productive work,” says Capt. Glenn Ackerman, station commander of the LAPD’s Hollywood Division. “Their programs work where many others fail, mostly because they provide all-round support and an effective follow-up.”

Elizabeth Gomez, executive director of the Los Angeles Youth Network, says, “They closed the yawning gap between youth and adult care.”

Ackerman and Gomez attribute Covenant House’s success to its high level of staffing--70 full- and part-time members--and director Ali’s energetic leadership. Under Ali, the organization has created collaborative relationships with other agencies, such as Children’s Hospital and the Boys and Girls Club. Ali, who moved to Los Angeles five years ago after working for Covenant House in Alaska, also organized the fund-raising drive that raised the capital to build the new facility and leave it debt-free.

“Helping damaged kids repair their lives is one of the most useful things anyone can do,” Ali says. “Along with the other agencies and organizations operating in Hollywood, we are trying to heal some of the wounds our often uncaring culture inflicts on its most vulnerable members.”