Chuck Yates Needs A Job

0:20 Everybody, welcome to Chuck Yates needs a job, the Thanksgiving edition. And with Thanksgiving, it's a time to be grateful. So I thought I'd have my friend Sean on and we'd talk about something

0:32 he's grateful for. And that's Covenant House - Yeah, thanks Chuck. I appreciate it with everything that you do in the community. It was, we just had the sleep out last week, last Thursday. It's

0:45 a sleep out executive edition. So they do it every year It was the 11th year. And it was awesome to see Houstonians rally around Covenant House, which is focused on homeless youth aged 18 to 24,

1:00 who really have just come out of the foster care system for the most part - Okay, so that's, so we were lucky enough that a couple of the board members from Covenant House came to our breakfast club

1:12 and talked about it. But what's kind of the story there? So when was it, when was Governor? House founded, et cetera - So Covenant House was founded about 45 years ago, and it actually is in 31

1:24 cities around the world. But Covenant House, Texas in Houston, which is over just off of Montrose, is the only one in Texas. And it serves homeless youth, aged 18 to 24. So it's usually people

1:36 who've just come out of the foster care system. And the whole mission behind Covenant House is, it's not about short-term solutions Obviously, they've got emergency crisis centers and Covenant

1:50 House, Texas will sleep pre-COVID up to 130 people a night, usually with 20 on emergency mats on the floor, and they're still turning 30 or 40 away a night. But the whole purpose to Covenant House

2:05 is to provide these youth an opportunity to have a safe place to sleep, to get mentoring, to get medical care, both physical and mental health care. It allows them to have job interview training,

2:19 mentorship programs, and teaching them how to conduct themselves in an interview. And it's about giving one of the board members at Covenant House is a guy named Todd Bignet. Fantastic guy. But he

2:35 likened it to a hand up, as opposed to a handout. And so a lot of these homeless youth haven't finished high school, so they'll get their GED Some of them will go on to college, but the whole

2:49 purpose is to get them gainfully employed and provide them with the foundation so that they can give back to the community. And it's a great, great mission. 'Cause basically, I mean, what happens

3:02 with the state, right, is you're in the foster care program in age 18 or the end of your senior year in high school, somewhere around there, game over, right? That's right Hey, you're done.

3:14 Good luck, kid, right? At the age of 18, you are out of the foster care system. And a really scary statistic is that within 24 to 36 hours of children leaving the foster care system, they're

3:29 approached by human traffickers - Oh my God, yeah, really - Yeah, so it makes you wonder like, Why does that happen? Well, it's because the human traffickers know where the foster homes are And

3:44 it's an awful system.

3:48 It's a great system, but there's a lot of things that I think could be done better. And that statistic is one that really catches people off guard - No, it just caught me off guard. 'Cause it's,

4:03 I mean, it's a really hard problem, right? What do you do with the kiddo that's in trouble? What do you do with them? If they shouldn't be with their parents, if they don't have parents etc.

4:16 You hear horror stories coming out of the foster care system, and there are a lot of great people involved in that. But anyway, yeah, I mean, I guess in my gut, if you would have said, hey,

4:30 you turn 18, what happens? Well, your foster care family then raises some money and sends you to college, and it just doesn't happen that way - There's no training, there's nothing. There's your

4:42 18 and move on I think that I heard a statistic on Thursday night. So when we did the sleep out, we actually had something new this year where we had what they called sleep talks. And so like a TED

4:57 talk, but one of the things that people really enjoy about the sleep out in addition to being out there and giving something back is just the learning about what's going on in the systems And so one.

5:15 One of the sleep talks was on the foster care system. I'll share another scary statistic with you there. Another one was with human trafficking, the mental and physical health of the homeless youth,

5:28 nearly 100 of the residents who come into Covenant House today have

5:36 a mental health issue, whether it's anxiety or PTSD because of the stresses you were talking about. And then Houston, HPD, SWAT was there to talk about how they see the homeless problem and how

5:46 they're trying to handle it. The thing I was gonna tell you about the foster care system is there are some amazing organizations out there, but the lady who was speaking on Thursday night said that

6:00 if every church in Texas took one child, there would not be a foster care system. And her point was that it's not just about when a youth has adopted. brought into the foster care, there's no

6:16 support afterwards. There's no ongoing life change development or progression of this is how you can handle it, this is how of growing together as a family. And when people heard that stat about if

6:34 every church in Texas would sponsor one family to take one child, you'd solve the problem. Wow, because I'm sitting there at 54 years old, three days ago, calling my dad for advice. To

6:52 be 18 years old and not have that, and knowing you're not going to have that for the rest of your life is really tough. So covenant house, give me the lay of the land in Houston, it's a physical

7:07 building. People come, what does that look like? So, so Covenant House is on the corner of It's over by Montrose and Yocham and on Lovett Street. Now, that location is right in the center of

7:25 Montrose, and it's a great location. It's about 27 acres. The building was about 45 years old though, so it was not fit for purpose. So Covenant House actually this year tore down the old

7:40 facility. They did it about a month and a half ago And just raised, they've just crossed the 40 million mark for a 57 million capital raise for what they're calling the building of life. And so

7:55 currently, the Covenant House residents are all living in housing down in the Third Ward. So, didn't miss a beat, still taking care of all the kids and providing them the shelter and the security

8:08 that they've become accustomed to But the new facility that's going to be built.

8:16 It's going to be able to house 50 more homeless youth in a night. It's going to have a gym for physical care. It'll have a library. It's going to have a full medical facility, dining area. It's

8:28 going to be designed to provide better housing, better facilities to hopefully end homeless. The homeless does Well, and you know what's important about this that I think is underappreciated is a

8:45 lot of the communities that are served by charities. I'm on the board of an after school literacy program for Houston's Fifth Ward. One of the key issues is just the transient nature of the

8:58 population, meaning you're a kid in the Fifth Ward and you go live with your grandmother and then she passes you off to an aunt And so just the lack of permanency, the lack of stability in your life

9:13 leads to a lot of these things, you know, mental health type issues. And so going and building a big freaking building that's going to be there for a hundred years actually means a lot. They know

9:25 they can come back and see it. And that's one of the things we did at YDC is right in the middle of the 5th ward. We built a 5 million building and it's a nicer facility than my kids go to school at,

9:37 and that was really important because it says to the community, Hey, we're here. We're not going anywhere. We're not renting space. And so I think it's important that you do that. I think that's

9:47 exactly right. And I give a lot of credit to the board and the management of Covenant House because, look, you've got 27 acres in the heart of downtown. There's high rises going up all over the

10:01 place They very easily could have sold that property and built something huge outside of town. But that's not where the problem is. So all of these youth and the homeless in general, know where

10:15 Covenant House is. And so what you referenced with respect to the person going to the aunts, to the grandmothers, to the friends, it's called couch surfing. So it's just, it's your constantly

10:27 trying to find that new location that you can stay until somebody kicks you off for whatever reason. But at the same time, you have youth

10:40 who are 13, 14, 15 years old who are living in tents and encampments by themselves. Right? And so last week when we were doing the sleep out, you had about 100 executives from around Houston.

10:58 And you know, you're sleeping on a cardboard box in the elements. It was Thursday night, it was about 42, 43 degrees,

11:10 It didn't rain though, right? But there was no cover if it did. Friday night, there was a lot of rain. I imagine being exposed to that. But the one thing that you didn't experience as an

11:21 executive sleeping out was the fear, right? So a lot of these homeless youth, they can't sleep at night or because that's when, that's when things happen. So they try to find places to protect

11:34 themselves and they call it homeless in plain sight And it's just, it's incredible what these kids go through and to be able to continue to be curious, to be continued to want to grow, to continue

11:51 to want to give back. It's an amazing organization because they meet you where they, you meet them where they are, right? And you let that process unfold in terms of their own growth development

12:08 but uh when we were doing the, when we did the sleep out Thursday night, the way that we closed the evening was with a panel of past residents. So people who were residents of Covenant House back

12:22 in the early 90s were there. But what we didn't know was one of the women who works at the ION as a security guard, we had no idea. She said, It's so great that Covenant House is here doing this.

12:36 I was a resident of Covenant House back in the early 2000s Oh, wow. Yeah. So how do you find the kiddos? Yeah. I mean. So it's a lot of

12:47 what happens actually is through the permanence of the location, right? So people become familiar with who Covenant House is in the different foster care communities or pediatric hospitals that

13:01 become aware of it But something that is really unique or interesting about the homeless population is. There is a hierarchy, but there's also a lot of, there's a care. And so what Covenant House

13:19 will do three or four times a week is they'll do outreach. And so about 10 or 11 o'clock at night, they'll go around to all the different homeless populations, the encampments and what have you.

13:31 And they'll just hand out food, they'll hand out toiletries, just things to let people know that Covenant House is there. So what ends up happening is the people who are institutionally homeless,

13:47 if you will. So that's when you get to be 25 and above. They actually know where the kids are because the kids are usually hiding in abandoned houses or they'll be in the back of an encampment and

14:01 then they'll direct the kids to Covenant House. But usually, and I don't think it happened this year, but in past outreaches when we've done that for sleep out.

14:12 We'll find a homeless youth and bring them back to Covenant House with us. So it's just being out there in the community, being a constant source of

14:21 information, a constant source of reassurance, and people will tell the other members of the community where to go if they need help - That's cool. And I could actually see that if I'm homeless and

14:36 been on the streets for 10 or 15 years, not wanting a kid to go through what I went through. And so, hey kid, you need to get over here - It happens quick. I mean, it really is, it's pretty

14:50 frightening when you think about how quickly homelessness can happen to a person. The first year that I did it, we were down by the library in downtown Houston where there's a pretty decent homeless

15:06 population at times And there was a person there who was a - He was married until a couple of months before, got divorced, lost his job, and all of a sudden he was on the street. And what you

15:23 realize about homelessness is, nobody wants it, right? And it can happen quickly. So you've got, I mean, you're commenting about Thanksgiving, right? There's a lot to be grateful for. But the

15:38 empathy, the compassion that you see in the homeless people that you go out and meet with through outreach or through the sleepout is amazing. They're the kindest people that you can imagine. When

15:50 we were doing it on Thursday night, we handed out about 300 meals around Houston. And I had one experience where we were just about to pack up and move on to the next spot. And a woman came, you

16:06 know, basically running across the street and said, You didn't get that guy. And there was a person who was sleeping. And so she took the meal, brought it back, put it right next to him so that

16:18 when he woke up, he was gonna have something. And I've seen things like people ripping their cheeseburgers in half because you ran out of food and people are just trying to share. There's a real

16:31 kindness and a real gratitude - Yeah, it was interesting one morning, my brother Kenny calls me and says, Hey man, do you mind run with me? I lost my wallet and this guy called from downtown and

16:42 said he found it. And I just don't wanna go by myself. So it sure turned out the guy was homeless, played basketball for the University of Hawaii, wasn't gonna play in the NBA, but

16:57 played long enough that he was gonna be able to graduate. Graduate said he tried meth, don't know why he did it and just three years later he's hooked and he's homeless in Houston. But I mean, a

17:10 good dude found Kenny's wallet, called Kenny, you know, actually took some effort to be able to figure out 'cause you know, Kenny's got his driver's license, had to call information, did that,

17:23 you know, didn't want any money. Hey, no, I don't know, you know, of course we gave him money, but you know, it was like, hey, I don't want any money, I just want to make sure you got this

17:30 back. And the like, and yeah, just hooked on meth, had a, has a kid, you know, and all And it was, yeah, that's something that I think is, that is great about what Coven House does as well,

17:49 which is you, a lot of these homeless youth, not a lot, but they have their own children, right? 14, 15 years old and they're having their own babies. And so the cycle just feeds on itself.

18:04 And so one of the things that they try to do a Coven House, they do do a Coven House is, They try to provide some sort of family guidance. They take care of the children's children, if you will.

18:17 And drugs are a huge part of the problem. But it comes from a lot of different areas. I mean, the residents of Covenant House come from all sorts of neighborhoods. And it's not just, and frankly,

18:35 from all over Texas And that's how well Covenant House, Texas has become known and the broader community. Because, you know, at the end of the day, Bernay Brown's research will say that when we

18:48 don't feel we're worthy of love, that's leads to all the problems. That's why we drink too much. That's why we do drugs, et cetera. And it's finding something to fill that void. And I mean,

18:60 nothing like making you feel unworthy of love, then getting passed around. Right. Right And then when you're 18, the check stops will get out. Yeah, yeah - You quote unquote been our child for

19:12 the last two years because we were getting paid now, get out - No, no, yeah - Yeah. And I think, and it's, and you hear those stories and they're gut-wrenching, right? And when I started doing

19:25 the sleepout about five years ago, this was my fifth year, friend of mine was a board member at Covenant House. He since has passed away, but we all went the first year to do the sleepout because

19:39 he couldn't do it. He was going through chemo treatments. And what we all saw was the generosity, what I saw was the generosity of the community, right? And I think, you know, Houston is an

19:52 amazing city, right? It's the energy hub. It's, you know, we were at the ION, which is the innovation hub. You've got the medical center. You've got some amazing universities. But the

20:02 generosity of the people in our community, The thoughtfulness, the pragmatism of Unmatched in the world. I totally believe that too. Every time somebody rags on the energy business, I'm like, no.

20:15 At minus 37 a barrel, YDC did not go under. No. Well, and

20:23 go over the last five years in energy, right? My first year, I raised

20:29 37, 000, or 17, 000, sorry. This year, I raised 104, 000, right? And for the sleepout itself, we've raised 1, 037, 000. We've got new corporate sponsorships from energy companies, but

20:48 it's the energy executives, 'cause that's my business, right? It's energy. So those are the people who I know. But they love to give back. And they wanna understand why. They wanna know that

21:01 there's a cost benefit to it, right - Accountability - Accountability evidence-based programming. It's not about handouts, it's about how are you making things better, but this is an incredibly

21:13 generous community.

21:17 To me, with all the vitriol

21:24 that energy gets, I don't think that people outside of the energy community just know how generous the executives, the people that work here are. Just amazing, amazing people Yeah, no, that's

21:37 right.

21:40 What is a kind of a, and there may not be anything, but what's a typical day for a kid in the program and then what's kind of a typical life cycle of the kid in the program? Sure.

21:55 So the day is going to be contingent on where they are in terms of

22:02 how recently they've gotten there.

22:07 There's a lot of base given. There's a trust issue. So the first few weeks or months, and it all depends on the kid, is just making sure that they're safe, they're secure, they feel loved.

22:23 They're getting the medical care that they need, they're getting the mental health care that they need, there's counseling. And as somebody is progressing, as they become more comfortable within

22:36 Coven House, as they start to proactively contribute, right? They proactively want to go to the next level. So there'll be the emergency care facility. And then there is an intermediate facility.

22:55 And then there's what is called the Rights of Passage program. And so the Rights of Passage program is where Coven and House youth are, they have their own apartment their own room, they are

23:10 working or at school. So whether that's high school or college, it's usually college, but they're also working out in the community. They're saving 30 of their income so that when they do graduate

23:26 from the Rights of Passage program and they're out in the community, they've got a nest egg. Covenant House isn't saying, hey, you've had housing for the last 18 months and now you're just gonna

23:38 go out into the world with nothing. So Covenant House helps them learn how to manage their own finances, how to have a budget. And what I think is

23:58 amazing about the program and then at 25, that's when they have to graduate of Covenant House because that's just where the age limit is.

24:15 They end up being in an environment where they can make mistakes, right? They can do something wrong. And I heard a story from Leslie Borne, who runs Covenant House, just an amazing lady,

24:32 where one of their, one of the youth had gotten their first job. It was at McDonald's It was across the street and off Westheimer, and they made it about two weeks, right? So instead of coming

24:48 back and getting beaten up or, you know, admonished for why didn't you keep your job? Like, what happened? You should have shown up on time. It was like, okay, you made it two weeks. So

25:00 what's next? Right? And it's just that the ability to celebrate that we're all going to fall down It's okay if you fall down. We're not going to ridicule you for it. We're going to help you get

25:13 back up and move. forward. And so with every youth, it's different. I don't know that there is a constant progression. Yeah. No, that's interesting. So you've been talking about this sleep out.

25:28 And kind of what I've gathered from listening to it is you're recruiting folks to go sleep outside, I experience what homelessness is. How are you raising money off that? You mentioned sponsors.

25:42 But how does the fundraiser work? So it's always the Thursday before Thanksgiving. So we did it last Thursday. And again, it was all the covenant houses around the world. And there's 31 of them.

25:57 I think I mentioned that a little bit earlier. And so what we'll end up doing in September

26:05 is when we'll kick off in earnest about reaching out to executives, reaching out to leaders in the community, to have them join us for the sleep out. And so when you sign up for the Sleepout

26:18 Executive Edition, there's actually a Young Professionals edition in the spring, but the Executive Edition, you sign on and agree to try and raise 5, 000 through donations, over what have you.

26:30 And

26:33 some people come in, write the 5, 000, check themselves and they do it. Other people go out and raise 50 here, 50 there We had one new sleeper this year, a guy you know, Don Childress,

26:49 he actually sponsored for the first time this year, but Don, first time sleeper, raised over 30, 000 - Oh wow - Yeah. And so you just go out and you let people know what you're doing and you let

27:04 them know why you're doing it. And I think that what is, and then in terms of the sponsorships, that's something where this year, a number of new sponsors, new energy companies have come in.

27:17 Enterprise was a corporate sponsor this year. Western gas sent to team, Kinder Morgan has people there. I mean, so

27:27 historically the Covenant House had a lot of real estate and a lot of legal professions. Jackson Walker's a huge sponsor, Lock Lord But

27:42 I was like, well, I'm an energy, I need to get the energy folks in here because they're way too generous. And so we've been building that out. Oh, very cool. Very cool. So million bucks,

27:53 what's like the last, I don't know, five or 10 years looked like in terms of fundraising? Yeah, so the first year they did it, they were about 15 sleepers and they raised about 200,

28:10 000, I think.

28:13 Last year, it was the 10th anniversary of the sleepout. We raised 125 million, and there were about 120 sleepers. This year, we're at 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, we had a very large donation last year,

28:30 so I'm really proud of where we are so far But we're at 1, 037, 000, we had 167 sleepers and 100 people actually were able to sleep out because there were some sleepers who signed up from different

28:43 parts of Texas. So yeah, we're trying to get to 125 million by the end of the year, December 31st. And over

28:53 95 of the money raised goes to the organization the operating expenses of Covenant House And so it's a great event. I was thinking about this as I was talking to folks about it this year. There's a

29:11 lot of incredible charities. and charitable events, dinners, and what have you in Houston. Again, it's a really generous town. I've been to three or four over the course of the last month,

29:23 right? What the sleepout is, is an entirely different experience. It is absolutely experiential because you are there with the youth that you're helping all night long. So from the minute you walk

29:38 in the door, they're giving you your name tag, to the stories that they're telling you when they were 14 and abused and they ran away and the 16 year old who's living in a tent.

29:53 And then you conclude the evening, about 11, 30, 12 o'clock at night by pulling out a cardboard box, getting in your sleeping bag, no pillows, and you're beholden to the elements. And you

30:07 realize that the human body is not meant to sleep on concrete or cardboard boxes. So in the morning, they'll do a reflection. It's pretty somber. So when everybody gets up and walks away and

30:26 people go to work or what have you, it's a very quiet

30:37 quite egress, if you will,

30:40 because no one is happy, because you've seen a lot, your eyes have been open to the reality of what these kids go through, the fact that they are kids. We had a question, we had one of the panels,

30:56 and they were talking about the mental and physical health, and some of the questions that

31:05 the doctors get are very basic, elementary things that your fifth or sixth grader would know. But

31:15 I ask the question, so do you find that the kids are curious? Do they want to know more about their health, or more about their mental well-being?

31:27 It's a uniform, absolute yes. I mean, these kids want to learn more, they want to participate. they want to give back and they're so grateful to have all of these leaders, if you will,

31:43 executives in the community out there willing

31:48 to sleep out in solidarity because we can never recreate that experience, like the true experience, but just to raise awareness and the acknowledgement that what you go through is really hard and

32:02 we're here to try to help it get better Well, Sean, it's really cool. You did that. How do people find Covenant House? How do people sign up for next year? Give us kind of a contact deets, if

32:17 you will. Yeah, absolutely. So the next sleep out will be November, I think it's November 16th, 2023. So it's the Thursday before Thanksgiving The development person is Felicia Broussard and the

32:31 website is Covenant House, Texas.

32:38 CovenantHouseTXorg. So

32:41 CovenantHouseTXorg. And we'll start recruiting new sleepers, probably sometime in the summer, but there's a lot of things that you can do at Covenant House over the course of the next 12 months if

32:53 you wanna come down and help out. I've brought my kids down there to wrap Christmas presents. You can, there'll be a night of Broadway stars in the spring, which is the, there's a Covenant House

33:08 in New York and some obviously amazing Broadway shows in New York,

33:17 but one of the members of the board of Covenant House in New York actually travels around the country with Broadway stars and they put on a performance of different musicals in a given evening And so

33:33 it's a - it's a - it's an amazing event if you like Broadway. And there's some other random events throughout the course of the year, but covenandhousetxorg. And

33:47 I was executive chair this year. I'm thinking I'm gonna pass the reins to somebody next year for the sleep out. Sounds like Don Childress. Sounds like

33:59 Don Childress. But it's, it gets better every year and it gets better because more and more people know about it because people like you thank you for having me here to talk about this. I mean, my

34:11 mom will listen to it. So, well, it's just, I mean, it's every little bit helps, right? And when you talk to these youth, like they don't want money, right? They don't

34:24 want, they want a hello. They want you to look them in the eye. They want five minutes of time. They want a prayer they want some mentorship and I think that when you realize how little it takes,

34:37 if everybody just gave a little bit, we could go a long way in solving a lot of problems - Well, one of our mutual friends, Patrick Miller, the who's made a couple appearances on the podcast, but

34:49 the priest, never with me - Never with you - Never with you. But the priest at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, one of the things he always talks about is, when you see a homeless person at the

35:02 corner, you cannot deny them humanity. You need to look them in the eyes. You need to wave hello. Patrick actually suggests carrying a bottle of water and socks and handing those out, 'cause

35:14 there is an issue that potentially you're handing cash, it turns to drugs. But Patrick's big on do not deny them the humanity because they're human - Absolutely - And what's interesting, the singer,

35:29 Jewel, my dear friend, She was

35:33 homeless. I mean, she signed a record deal. She was homeless and she has a great joke about it. She was living out of her car and her car got stolen. Fortunately, she wasn't in it. But now and

35:46 just how dehumanizing it was to be looked away at and someone not recognizing you as a person. So it's a real thing - Yeah, and I think Patrick is always really eloquent, right, but he's spot on

36:04 It's look at them, acknowledge them. You notice when people don't look you in the eye, right? And what you find with the homeless, when you go out there and you're doing outreach and giving them

36:19 meals, they want to look you in the eye. They want to say thank you. That's all they, they want to be acknowledged. And I think that that is something that we can, we should all strive to do in

36:33 our daily interactions, with the homeless in particular, they'd want to be acknowledged. And the

36:42 giving of toiletries or essentials or socks or water bottles, I think that it's a great practice. So

36:51 they definitely don't encourage giving out money because unfortunately there are bad actors out there and it can end up in bad places. But when everybody left the sleep out, there were donation bags

37:03 So they had little bags that you could give to homeless people as you were driving by and it had the Covenant House card in it so that people knew where to go. But they treating each other humanely

37:17 and with humanity, I think goes a long way. And that's all that's all that'll, these youth and I think the homeless want - Oh, Sean, you were great to do that and you were great to come on today

37:28 - Thanks, Chuck. Always a pleasure and hopefully, be on some time

37:33 with me. There we go - We can talk about fun stuff, like energy or whatever - You know, the joke with Patrick is he comes on, I think he was the third podcast ever did. He came on later and we

37:43 had to talk about how sequels suck. So I mean, you know, is there a - Is there a third one better - Is there a part three movie that's actually decent? I mean,

37:54 I kinda liked back to the future part three. I mean, that was - Return to the Jedi was okay - Yeah, that's true. Return to the Jedi was good - We could do that - So it'll be George Lucas level

38:05 when you and Patrick come on - Definitely not national impoons - Yes -

38:12 Exactly, exactly. Or any movie that contains Dom Delouis.

38:20 Sean, thanks for coming on - Thanks, Chuck.