The Illini Union will host its annual One Book, One Campus event at 7 p.m Tuesday in Illini Union Rooms A-C. OBOC is a free public lecture that is open to members of the Champaign and Urbana communities and features a book that raises awareness about a topic of interest and encourages discussion.

This year’s featured book will be “Almost Home: Helping Kids Move from Homelessness to Hope,” by Kevin Ryan and Tina Kelley. The book highlights the transformations of six homeless youths at the Covenant House International, the largest charity that serves homeless and trafficked young people in North and Central America.

Ryan, president of Covenant House, and co-author Kelley will be at the event to discuss their book and the issue of youth homelessness.

Previously, Ryan was appointed by the governor of New Jersey as the state’s first Child Advocate in 2003 and later as the commissioner for the Department of Children and Families in 2006. Kelley, on the other hand, worked as a reporter at The New York Times from 1999 to 2009, where she was part of the Metro staff that won a 2002 Pulitzer Prize for the coverage on the Sept. 11 attacks.

Ryan said that the two developed a good working relationship as their fields intersected, and they began writing the book in 2010. After two years of exchanging drafts, the book was published with hopes of raising awareness and compelling others to help with the larger issue of youth homelessness.

“The problem with youth homelessness is that so few people know that it exists,” Kelley said. “Homeless young people really work hard to stay invisible, and once people know that they exist, they can join in our movement to help reduce youth homelessness.”

“Each year … young people die on the streets of America, as there are not enough safe places for them,” Ryan said. “I had a strong hunch that once readers came to know the kids in our book — Paulie, Muriel, Keith, Meagan, Benjamin and Creionna — as individuals, not as ‘those kids,’ they would see the real need to help them.”

This was the primary reason Chancellor Wise and the OBOC Committee selected the book for the event, said Frances Davis, assistant director of General Books at the Illini Union Bookstore.

“We look for books that after reading or glancing … compel you, encourage you and incite you to communicate with other people about the subject and to take action,” Davis said.

Tyler Koontz, OBOC committee member, Illini Union Bookstore student supervisor of General Books and graduate student at the University, also expressed that “there was no better moment than now to shed more light on this topic.”

The Champaign County Continuum of Care, an agency committed to ending homelessness in Champaign County, published a survey on Jan. 24 that revealed that 214 people, including 41 children, were homeless in Champaign County at that time.

“After looking into the local statistics, the committee and the chancellor realized that this book also hit very close to home,” Koontz said.

Thus, this event “allows the University to highlight the issue of homeless(ness) for teens and young adults in our society, and provides a forum to come together as a campus and a community at large,” said Lowa Mwilambwe, Illini Union director.

“My hope is that these conversations will continue in other settings and beyond the event on Oct. 29,” Mwilambwe said.

This is a hope Ryan also has, stemming from his experiences with the homeless youth at Covenant House.

“I had seen young people make remarkable transformations during my years at Covenant House, and I wanted more people to know about how important it is for vulnerable kids to have a place to go where they can receive unconditional love and respect, and the chance to embrace the bright futures they deserve,” Ryan said.

But Kelley’s reason for the hope for change comes from one that is more personal.

“I was adopted at birth, and I could’ve ended up in any situation, any home life. I wanted to write about the homelessness issue in particular because I felt so lucky with the home I did get,” she said. “I hope there will be an understanding that homeless kids exist and are often in their situation at no fault of their own, and that they’re incredibly talented and compelling human beings. And with that understanding, I hope would come a desire to do something to help.”

Stephanie can be reached at [email protected].