Covenant House Vancouver

A while back, we had a young person stay with us who was being grouchy towards staff.  It turned out he wasn’t  getting a restful sleep at night and because of this, he requested to keep communication with staff in the morning to a minimum so that his grouchiness doesn’t cause any problems and so that he could work towards a better attitude as the morning progresses.

He had been in the shelter program numerous times before; working and saving money but never quite made it on to full independence. He found it living in a shelter environment, he struggling with his addiction to alcohol and lacked the life-skills required for independent living. At this last stay, he was close to aging out of our program (shelter youth can only stay until their 23^rd birthday), so we hopeful for a successful stay wherein he might finally get a solid footing and gain that independence.

Something pretty special happened when he was here; something that really showed where this young man’s heart is.

Our front desk worker told me that this young man handed in a lost wallet and it was returned to a grateful single young mother who had lost it. I asked him about it and he beamed with a smile as he shared with me his “good deed for the day”. He was proud, and so were we!

With the various comings and goings of so many youth throughout our programs – through their many successes and failures – one of our hopes is that they are gaining not only life-skills and good habits that will help them find a job and find a home, but perhaps also a value system where everyone is cared for and given unconditional love. The actions of this young man was a perfect example of just such a thing....