Covenant House helps bring out youth potential

While Covenant House Toronto is perhaps best known to the public as the largest youth shelter in all of Canada, what many likely don’t know is its standing as a powerful illustration of ShareLife’s long-standing investment in programs for children and youth. 

Established 44 years ago, in 1982, the agency has spent decades establishing a legacy of unconditional love and practical support for young people facing risks such as homelessness and trafficking, a mission uniquely assisted and shaped by the generosity of ShareLife donors.

Covenant House Toronto has long had a special connection to the Archdiocese of Toronto. It was Cardinal Gerald Emmett Carter, then Archbishop of Toronto, who, after noticing young people sleeping outside his downtown office, decided to make a change.

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Carter rallied for local community support to open the first Covenant House in Canada upon learning about the work of the Covenant House in New York. Recognizing how young people experiencing homelessness deserved both a haven to turn to, as well as the element of love and respect, the distinctive Catholic roots helped embed the mission of Covenant House as something that continues to guide its work to this day.

While some of the issues facing young people remain the same today as they did during Carter’s time, many have evolved drastically. Still, the belief in the spirit and potential of young people continues to be at the root of the agency amid troubling statistics, like the most recent Street Needs Assessment estimating that more than 1,500 16-to-24-year-olds experience homelessness on any given night in Toronto. 

To date, Covenant House Toronto has supported more than 110,000 youth experiencing homelessness and trafficking through their care alone. 

Josie doRego, Covenant House Toronto’s chief development and marketing officer, speaks about the range of services and supports that continue to make an impact. 

“Covenant House Toronto provides a comprehensive model of care designed to meet young people wherever they are in their journey. For youth in immediate crisis, we offer emergency shelter and drop-in services that provide necessities, like food, clothing and health care, and once immediate needs are addressed, youth can access a broad range of on-site services, including individual and family counselling, mental health and addiction counselling, primary health care, education and employment programming and life-skills development,” she said. 

The agency also operates transitional housing programs both at the shelter and in the community to help youth go from homelessness toward stable and independent living. Along with Youth in Transition programs, both programs are assisted by ShareLife. 

As doRego explains, Covenant House’s most important work is perhaps in areas that extend beyond simply responding to homelessness, and instead addressing issues faced by so many at their core. 

“While crisis services remain essential, we know that if we truly want to end youth homelessness, we can’t focus only on what happens after a young person loses their housing,” she said. “Through our in-school prevention program, family counselling and mediation and community partnerships, we strive to intervene earlier and help young people remain safely housed and tied to their community of support like school, whenever possible.” 

Reflecting on why Covenant House Toronto, like many agencies supporting at-risk children and youth, remain so important today, the team could have pointed to the numbers — whether that one in 100 youth in Toronto will experience homelessness over the course of a year or that youth shelters in the city hover around 97-per-cent occupancy — there is no shortage of ways to express its indispensability.

DoRego, however, calls to mind what the statistics don’t show. 

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“Youth homelessness is different from adult homelessness in that young people are still developing emotionally, socially and academically, and a period of homelessness during these critical years can have lifelong consequences,” she said.

“Many of the youth we serve have experienced significant trauma, family conflict, abuse, neglect, discrimination or exploitation before they ever arrive at our doors. They’re facing high unemployment rates, rising rental costs and more complex mental health challenges. Without timely intervention, there is an increased likelihood of ongoing housing instability, poorer health outcomes and barriers to education and employment throughout adulthood.” 

Still, youth by their very nature remain resilient when they are given safety, stability and the right supports, and it is in environments like Covenant House where they can thrive. The biggest myth the team hears is about homelessness stemming simply from a young person’s poor choices, rather than the storm of circumstances that are often beyond their control. 

“What we (actually) see in these young people is the remarkable strength necessary to seek support and work towards their potential. Every day we meet youth who are pursuing education, working jobs, supporting friends, overcoming trauma and planning for brighter futures despite weathering extraordinary challenges,” she said. 

Through ShareLife’s decades-long and continued support, each of those youth has a place to call home when they’ve needed it most. ShareLife directly supports “Rights of Passage,” the shelter’s on-site transitional housing program, along with the Youth in Transition program, which helps them navigate their new neighbourhoods and connect to the right services nearby. 

One person directly affected through the ShareLife Support Rights of Passage program was a youth named Mickey. As doRego recalls, while driven to pursue an education, she was able to rely on a safe place to stay while being supported by a community that helped her to build life skills like budgeting, cooking and laundry. She was also able to utilize the shelters’ education and employment programs to pursue her dream of working in health care. Now she’s a registered nurse in one of Toronto’s busiest hospitals. 

“Donors help to provide the supports that make stories like Mickey’s possible, and this on-site housing program has been life-changing for her.” 

ShareLife also supports youth-based agencies in St. Vincent de Paul’s Camp Ozanam and the Archdiocese of Toronto’s Office of Catholic Youth, both of which share a similar mission of wrap-around support. 

While the needs of at-risk youth are changing as the realities facing them do as well, Covenant House Toronto has broadened its continuum of care to focus on preventing homelessness before it begins, responding when a crisis occurs and creating pathways to independence through programs like transitional housing. 

And so from Carter’s decision to act in 1982 to the more than 110,000 young lives touched by evolving programming since, Covenant House Toronto’s legacy has been uniquely strengthened by ShareLife.

Even as ShareLife celebrates its 50th anniversary, that partnership continues to offer something profound in the chance for each young person to move beyond their crisis and into a future shaped by opportunity and hope.

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“We hope readers recognize the difference (ShareLife’s) support has made to the thousands of youth who come through our doors. Behind each of these numbers is a young person with dreams, talents and tremendous potential and many who have benefited directly from the generosity of donors,” doRego said. 

“With the ongoing support of the ShareLife community, we are making a difference, and that is something to celebrate.”

A version of this article appeared in the September 27, 2026 issue of The Catholic Register with the headline "Covenant House helps bring out youth potential".