The young people who come to Covenant House typically had a difficult journey.

“We provide housing to young people who have been disconnected from their families, and young people who have been trafficked. We have a large number of migrant young people who cross the southern border and looking for safety and sanctuary,” Shakeema North, interim executive director at Covenant House New York, said.

The organization’s Manhattan hub is a safe place for them. But the crane collapse on Wednesday at a nearby construction site displaced them again, forcing the evacuation of roughly 100 young people.

“The level of anxiety that most of them were experiencing is just, you know, exacerbated — some of the feelings that they already had, you know, and especially with the things that led to them to become homeless in the first place,” North said.

Mental health support was available as they set up an evacuation center nearby. Staff began working with city and state agencies, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and with other Covenant House locations to find safe housing for their young people at a variety of different shelters.

About 15 young people ended up across the Hudson River — at Covenant House New Jersey in Newark.

“We had an all hands on deck approach last night to make our new residents comfortable,” Julia Einbond, executive director of Covenant House New Jersey, said.

Staff from the Newark location raced out to buy cots and assemble emergency toiletry and supply kits for the displaced young people to sleep in the facility’s gym.

For many, sleeping in a gym conjures up bad memories.

“Some of those places are nasty places, and we’re not that — we provide the highest level of care in whatever situation that we have. And so we were ready with our team, welcoming the people who had feelings about it — we had some young ladies who had experienced large-scale shelters at the border, who didn’t speak English, who just really needed to talk about that for a few minutes before they could decide they were comfortable enough to stay for the night,” Einbond said.

Einbond spent part of Wednesday night buying pajamas at a nearby Walmart.

“We have trailers coming tonight from a partner organization to provide showers in the parking lot, so that we can provide more showers more quickly than we were able to do last night. We have our development team volunteering this afternoon to take the young people out to buy clothes. We’ve freed up some cash to let them go and have a little bit of a shopping spree just for the next two days. They’re still wearing their clothes from yesterday,” Einbond said.

The New York organization is awaiting word from an engineer on when they’ll get back inside their building, which sustained some damage to generators and vents on the rooftop.

If you’d like to help Covenant House meet the immediate needs of these young people who have been displaced, you can visit their website.