Covenant House Sleep Out | On Location

0:00 Hello and welcome to real men. Feel this is a very different real men feel. This is the first time on location, I'm your host. Andy Grant author. Coach Halen speaker to visit the integrate.com to learn more about me, but probably wondering. What the heck am I doing today actually? Tonight, it's about 11:30 p.m. November 17th at the Covenant House sleep out in Boxborough. Massachusetts, I'm part of a team Boston for Cisco. And this is the first time, That the Boston area has done the sleepout people sleep out for one night and solidarity with homeless Youth Of America and of the world actually, and we raised money. And this is the been the first fundraiser.

0:40 I've been a part of since I think I was in the seventh grade. I did some sort of walkathon thing, but I think I've my goal was $5000. The last I checked. I think I was like at forty eight hundred dollars, maybe something like that. Overall my company. Cisco worldwide. 750 Cisco nians are sleeping out tonight and they raised Over one and a half million dollars. This is just amazing and it's 32 degrees right now, the forecast as low as 26. The there are wind gusts of like 25. It's just it's one nights like big deal. I know, I can go home tomorrow. I know you know I had dinner tonight. I'll be warm tomorrow morning. I'm going to be fine and this is all done to raise money, and bring awareness to people that aren't fine.

1:25 And that don't have a choice and are out in the street struggling, each and every night. And Covenant House gives those young people ages, 18 to 21 somewhere to go a hand up and they give way it's way more than the shelter. There's a whole program and I'm going to be talking different people tonight overnight in the morning. Good document, my own experience here I have done, plenty of fries outs, do a lot of camping, trips my buddies, but I realized getting ready for night. I'm always drunk at those. So this is my first sober freezing experience and it's going to be, it's gonna be great. Covenant House is someone that I donated to already before I even discovered that Cisco was a big corporate sponsor and that this sleepout was even a thing.

2:08 So I was very excited to be part of this and to be here when I was 18 and 19 years old, you know, I was kicked out of my house and it was, you know, neighbors took me in for a while. Then I was living in my dad's basement for a while and, you know, things could have gone a lot worse and things do get a lot worse for a lot of people. I've had plenty of room and feel guest that talked about, you know, They hit rough times then they got them when they were homeless and things, got even rougher. So it's nothing glamorous about living on the streets. The sleepout is not about pretending to be homeless, it's not about pretending one night out. Here was anything about the experience is just to raise awareness and to raise funds. So that's what we're doing.

2:52 My name is Jovan and ran, I'm the chief development officer and I've been with Kevin house for 23 years since 1999. Tonight, we are doing our first sleep out in Boston and so the sleepout program has been part of our movement for the past 13 years. And this is our very first time of gathering folks together in Boston who care about homeless young people and helping them to change their lives. But and sleep out is, is this one night a year, but it happens worldwide or only in Boston. Now, it happens. Worldwide. Yep, we tonight, we are first. I got the first picture of our first team of sleepers, in Japan at noon, eastern time today. And it's happening.

3:39 I'm all the way through to the evening in Mexico and California in Vancouver in Alaska and that will and then time zones in between. So we're all over the place tonight. Out. So, and what is, what is the point of asleep out? Yep. Why is anyone doing this? Well, we do it, for two reasons. One is to raise awareness about the problem of Youth homelessness, which often goes undiscussed and unseen. And the second is to raise money to support the programs of Covenant House that are helping young people to turn their lives around. And all of it is with being in solidarity, with young people who are experiencing homelessness, it's not intended at all to mimic or End that we can even begin to experience in one night under safe conditions, what?

4:27 It's like to experience, homelessness, but to sleep outside and lose some of the Comforts of home and solidarity. What's the age range of people that might find themselves in a company house? Yep, in the United States and Canada. It's largely young people who are between the ages of 18 and 21. And so in those two countries, the foster care system typically cuts off at age 18 And so at that point, if a young person doesn't have a family and isn't equipped, as my 19 year, old isn't equipped to live independently that's when they often find themselves homeless. And so, that's where the Cliff of services often ends. Is on the 18th birthday.

5:07 In the four countries, where we serve in Latin America, we serve young people who are much younger and so that range is about the advert, he's about 14. So it's 10 to 18 is the age in Latin America, really for this. Same reason, that that's where Services cliff and Covenant House, has to stop them. What are you saving people from, right? Yeah, it's a great question. It's such an intersectionality of so many issues as rarely. Rarely a young person comes to us with one problem, right? And so, sometimes that's the case, but that's especially the case. When mental health is the primary issue is that sometimes that is just too much for our family to Bear especially a family that may already have modest means or be overwhelmed.

5:58 And so but mental health is I'm a big component where families can't often care or therefore the, the mental health runs in the family. And so, there is a prevalence of mental illness that drives young people to us. The biggest common denominator is goes without saying, is poverty that, it's young people who are coming from homes, where there's been, chronic poverty, or there's been a crisis in the family that has led to, you know, an impoverished situation, a death of a parent, a divorce, the abandonment job loss. You know, the recessions and such, you know, impact, the communities where we serve, young parenting is another through line through the a lot of the young people who we serve, and not just young women, but young men, as well as a major critical risk factor of homelessness among young people is if their parenting a child alone.

6:52 And so, most of our programs have the option to bring in a child or to move to another one of our programs that That does to really stop that cycle of homelessness. And then, of course, you know, the, the demographic risk factors when it when it intersects with with race, majority of the young people who we serve are black, Hispanic or of indigenous population. So, young people of color, the lgbtq population is dramatically disproportionately represented among homeless Youth and, you know, often it's family, rejection or not, finding In their place within their Community. But most often It's a combination of many of those factors that have a young person find their way to us. For younger that are on the streets, is it roughly 5050 men and women or who you know who comes to you and does does actually get some help as his, what's the breakdown? Yeah, it is about 50/50.

7:59 Yeah, yeah, and some of our communities, they're more young women in some. There are more people who identify as young men. Like there's, you know but it's you know, overall it is about half and half. Yeah. Is the sleepout always November 17th or is it always the is intentionally the week before Thanksgiving. We always we always have our biggest one the Thursday before Thanksgiving when we first started it. The second or third year in. I remember one of our participants saying as long as young people are homeless, I will be sleeping outside the Thursday before, Thanksgiving. And that's really always resonated with me as just an important time one. Because in much of the world that, you know, it's the beginning of it being incredibly cold out as it is here.

8:42 And but, but also, you know, kicks off the That season of, you know, people, you know, gathering with their families and thinking about how to be be generous and supportive of others. But we also do have, anybody can participate in a sleep out by going on our website, coven house, dot, org, and doing asleep at at any time, we have TurnKey programs where people get set up a fundraising page. And we have programming there that folks can do with their family, their church group tour, their Girl Scout Troop and all to to Awareness and raise money for our young people and then we do other ones. We had one last week, our stage and Screen sleep out, which is Broadway, performers and actors. Who, who participate the actress?

9:24 Rachel Brosnahan The Marvelous mrs. Maisel is the one who leads that she's been doing it for 10 years and and she recruits a bunch of folks to participate in that. So we do different ones throughout the year, but this is our big one. I think the most important thing to remember is that there really is. The really is There's that there's no difference between the young people who are, who I see every day at covenant house and the four teenagers who I'm raising in my own home. But for the luck of the draw, the family, they were born into, and the circumstances that have hit my family, in the circumstances that have avoided, my family, and so, and the same could be true for every one of the young people, Covenant House serves, and every one of our own families.

10:07 And so in a, in a country in a world that so / In so many ways. This is a place like this is a movement that every single person can get behind and feel good about that. These young people, all they want is what we all want for our children and for our families is happiness, normalcy. Have some fun and, you know, live healthy lives together. The sleepout is what what little sleeping out there was for me is over. It's a I think it's like 5:20 in the morning it's 28 degrees. I feel really good.

10:48 It was, it was not a pleasant night. It was very cold. All my, my all my stuff, my limited stuff is covered in Frost. I've been awake since for, I think I might have slept from, like, 1:30 to 2:30 solid. And then just like a lot of fitful naps, hard to get comfortable. My box, picking was not ideal. My box was just exactly as wide as my. And so I couldn't, I couldn't even I couldn't move. Well I couldn't even I couldn't even move my arms. Enough to zip up my sleeping bag. So But what with all that said, it was a really cool night. You know, spiritually, emotionally. Not just weather-wise a lot of amazing people here. I have like four 15.

11:40 I went inside and was just chatting more with the staff learning more about Covenant House and the history and all the services and just the turnarounds that they've been able to do for. So many young people last night we broke up in different I'm smaller breakout groups and got to hear from from to alumni of the Covenant House from New York City Maya and Nikita Nikita has gone on to get her master's degree and counseling. So, yeah, this is an amazing group and amazing cause, and by being privately funded by not relying on government at all, they get to do what they think is, right for, Each person that they come into contact with it's really cool. I think I would doing this each year. I feel.

12:40 It's weird. I feel so grateful. I'm Ivan. I don't know why I guess there's for everything that that this that a, you know, a crappy night of sleep in the cold on the pavement outside is just like, you know, I choose to do it, I don't have to do it, you know, and by making that choice, like I can appreciate everything else that I can choose. So be good to yourself. be good to each other, and I invite you to have with more compassion for the people you might see on the streets.