Covenant House - History

History

In the late 1960s, the Reverend Bruce Ritter, a Franciscan priest, stepped down from his post as a tenured professor at Manhattan College to begin a new ministry serving the city's poor. Joined by colleague Father James Fitzgibbon, he moved into a dilapidated tenement building in New York City's East Village, and along with a handful of friends, former students, and neighbors began an effort to help homeless and runaway youth. By 1970, Father Fitzgibbon had moved on to devote more time to drug counseling and other community ministries, but Father Ritter remained. Adrian Gately, Patricia Kennedy, and Paul Frazier joined him to create the Covenant Community. Two years later in 1972, Covenant House was officially incorporated with its first intake center established at 504 LaGuardia Place in New York City.

Now an established non-profit, Covenant House began to fundraise, using the monies to shelter homeless kids in lower Manhattan and on Staten Island. In 1976, Father Ritter announced plans to create a multi-service center near the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Covenant House then acquired a group of buildings on West 44th Street and moved its administrative offices to the new location.

Throughout the late 1970s, Covenant House continued to expand its social service programs in New York City and in 1980 began to branch out to other cities. For the next two decades, Covenant House grew under the leadership of Sister Mary Rose (1990–2003) and Sister Tricia Cruise (2003–2008), opening crisis centers in 21 more cities in the United States, Central America, and Canada.