Established in 1965, the Medicaid program was designed to provide health insurance to adults and children with limited financial resources. The Affordable Care Act expanded the program, allowing nearly any adult with income up to 138% of the federal poverty line to access coverage.

Since then, however, many states have been rolling back coverage. Georgia’s current program qualifies people earning up to the federal poverty level ($15,060 for an individual adult); although to receive coverage, they must first document that they’re working, in school, or performing other qualifying activities.

Georgia is currently the only U.S. state with a work requirement, although pending legal obstacles, there are plenty of others looking to follow suit.

An Impossible Task

At Emmaus House, we harness the power of community to dismantle barriers to opportunity in the lives and communities we serve, and unfortunately, an inability to access healthcare is a major barrier to opportunity.

Our neighbors with transportation barriers already face reduced employment opportunities, and for those with chronic health issues, holding a full-time job is all but impossible without sufficient health care.

A Helping Hand

At Emmaus House, we recognize that our neighbors’ healthcare isn’t a benefit of employment, it is a necessary condition for opportunity.

Our Lokey Help Center helps hundreds of residents enroll in Medicaid every year, offering medical co-pay and MARTA assistance for those dealing with transportation barriers. To learn more about how we’re supporting health and well-being in our community, click below.

It’s no secret that Black students K-12 receive a disproportionate amount of disciplinary action compared to white students. Studies show that Black male students are nearly twice as likely to be suspended or expelled as white students.

A recent study suggests the trend begins as early as kindergarten with teachers anticipating bad behavior from Black students and subjecting them to additional scrutiny and harsher punishments.

Whether or not it is conscious, this kind of bias can have a serious impact on students’ attitudes toward school and the level of trust they feel with teachers.

“Authoritarian disciplinary practices may socialize Black boys into a broader sense of racial inferiority and contribute to a negative self-image,”  said Calvin Zimmermann, the O’Shaughnessy Assistant Professor of Education at the University of Notre Dame, “while permissive discipline may socialize white boys into a sense of racial superiority, entitlement, and privilege.”

For young Black students to thrive, they must cultivate positive learning associations from a young age. That means surrounding them with supportive, empathetic instructors and culturally relevant materials.

Breaking the Cycle

Our CDF Freedom School program doesn’t just “teach” young scholars to read; it helps them foster a love of learning. From the opening Harambeeceremony to our curriculum and the way we approach discipline, we believe positive learning is a product of positive attitudes. This all begins with our staff and volunteers.

Freedom School staff are trained to manage behavior using positive reinforcement and restorative justice models. We’ve observed how exclusionary and corporal punishment not only impede students’ learning, but contribute to our society’s school-to-prison pipeline.

Pulling Together

In addition our daily opening ceremony, Harambee is a Swahili word that means “Let’s pull together.” It was first used as a call to unity following Jomo Kenyatta’s release from prison, where he had been held unjustly for several years. The word is still used in Kenya today to foster a sense of unity, self-determination, and collective action. 

These ideas are central to what we do at Emmaus House. To support equitable learning and literacy, we must prioritize all three, and it starts with examining our unconscious biases. 

We’ve long heard that there are book smarts and street smarts. At Emmaus House, we prefer service smarts.

Service learning has been an important part of our impact model and our professional development from the beginning. 

The Episcopal Service Corps empowers adults ages 21-32 to transform unjust structures through community building, local collaboration, prayer, and action. The Emmaus House chapter—called The Road—ran from 2012 - 2019 as a paid year-long fellowship helping young adults make the connection between their faith and social change. 

Participants lived together in an intentional spiritual community and served 32 hours a week with agencies and individuals committed to social justice, advocacy, and compassionate care for vulnerable people.

A Year of Service = A Lifetime of Inspiration

Longtime Emmaus House supporter Sam Dimon served as an Episcopal Service Corp fellow beginning in te summer of 1975. There, he engaged with Emmaus House’s work and mission on multiple fronts: he taught youth during summer camp, delivered items from the food pantry, helped out in the Poverty Rights Office, identified and assisted neighbors being displaced by development, and much, much more.

"At Emmaus House, I learned the reward of really seeing each person I was serving,” says Sam. “That lesson has stayed with me ever since." 

Following his fellowship, Sam continued to serve the community, working in a daycare center across the street for several months. He was so impacted by his service learning experience that he has continued to support Emmaus House ever since.

Never Stop Learning

Though our model has adapted over the years, we’re proud to continue the tradition of service learning today.

The current Emmaus House Fellowship seeks to develop the next generation of leaders who will help transform Atlanta into a more equitable city. This six-month, cohort-based model allows young adults to learn about community challenges and add their voice to community-driven opportunities.

We’re very excited to introduce our three fellows for 2024:

• Laurel Wynn - Workforce Development & Employment  

• Emma Sullivan - Child and Youth Education

• Marcus Cook - Safe and Affordable Housing & Community Safety

Over the next six months, we’ll be providing these fellows with professional development opportunities and connecting them with community leaders. They will attend neighborhood community meetings in Peoplestown and other neighborhoods as well as monthly Neighborhood Planning Unit V (NPU-V) meetings. On top of that, they’ll have weekly meetings with Emmaus House staff and, at the end of their fellowships, will submit reports summarizing their experiences and lessons learned.

We’re thrilled to have them and cannot wait to see how this experience transforms them and, ultimately, how they transform their communities.

Click below to learn more about the Emmaus House Fellowship.

With mixed emotions, I announce that I am leaving Emmaus House to move to another nonprofit. When I started eleven years ago as the Development Director, I had no idea of the holy work that takes place here every day.

At Emmaus House, those we serve are our teachers. I have learned from the thousands of people who have walked through our Help Center door that the outward trappings of success do not define human dignity. I have been reminded that the vulnerable among us are God’s beloved and are worthy of our love and care. I have seen Emmaus House help people of all ages embrace the opportunity to learn and grow so they can create better lives for their families.

For the past seven years, I have had the honor and privilege to serve as Executive Director, working with Bishop Wright, the Advisory Board, members of the Peoplestown community, funders, and so many others to continue the rich legacy of service to our neighbors on the south side of Atlanta. This legacy is now 57 years strong, and I am proud to have contributed a small part to this work.

The neighborhoods around us are changing, but Emmaus House stands firm on sacred ground. After all this time, and through all kinds of change, Emmaus House remains a strong, vibrant ministry where the wonder of God’s love is on display every day.

It has been a privilege to serve, and I am confident that Emmaus House will continue to be a beacon of love and support for those who often go unheard.

Peace,
Greg Cole

Message from Right Rev. Robert Wright,
10th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Atlanta

“Greg Cole has been an outstanding partner in ministry as the Executive Director of Emmaus House. His service to the vulnerable in our midst leaves a proud legacy for his successor. We have been blessed as a diocese by his ministry. We are grateful for the work of the continuing program staff and look forward to working with advisory board leadership to explore next steps towards executive leadership at Emmaus House.”

Message from Lori Elmore,
Emmaus House Advisory Board Chair

“Greg has been an exemplary Executive Director and has made significant contributions to Emmaus House and the Peoplestown community. He led the organization during a time of immense change and Emmaus House is in a stronger position because of Greg’s leadership. We appreciate his dedication and wish him the very best in his next endeavor.”

March is National Nutrition Month—a time to learn more about making informed food choices and to develop healthy eating and physical activity habits. It’s also a time to recognize that many families in our community face challenges accessing nutritious food options. 

Helping Get Food on the Table

One in nine Georgians experience food insecurity. The Emmaus House Food Pantry and Lokey Help Center provide resources for our neighbors who lack reliable access to sufficient quantities of affordable, nutritious food. 

In addition to providing them with food options, we also help guide neighbors through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) process so that they can access the food options they need to make healthy decisions and make the most of opportunities.

Weighing the Options

No family should have to choose between purchasing living essentials and healthy foods. Click below to learn more about how we’re addressing food insecurity in our community and how you can help.

We’re thrilled to announce our new Supports for Success Manager, SaPhenixx "Phenixx" Adams. 

Phenixx is a Georgia native—born and raised in East Atlanta—with a passion for advocating for underserved communities. She has spent the last several years building a network of resources to aid Metro Atlanta residents, specifically unhoused youth and adults, domestic violence survivors, clients living with AIDS/HIV, and low-income Atlanta residents. 

“Emmaus House’s mission to provide support and resources to residents in Peoplestown is what makes me excited to join the team. I have a passion to provide equitable access to resources to all communities and Emmaus House allows me to continue doing the work that I love. Emmaus House embodies the statement that “It takes a Village,” and I am thrilled to join its continued efforts and success.”

With a Master of Arts in Clinical Counseling from Brenau University, Phenixx specializes in trauma-informed care and therapeutic interventions. She believes you must understand an individual's experiences fully to assist them with their goals. She is determined to bring equitable access to mental health and social resources to residents of Metro Atlanta.
 

Supporting Economic Well-Being

As Supports for Success Manager, Phenixx will oversee our Supports for Success program, which takes 30-40 heads of households on a year-long journey toward economic stability, personal resiliency, and improved family well-being. Click below to learn more about the Supports for Success program.

In the meantime, please join us in welcoming Phenixx!

To learn more about our Supports for Success Program, click the link below:

Stable housing is critical for all kinds of success. Research shows that stable housing leads to greater family stability, better mental health for children, youth, and parents, increased educational achievement for children, and stronger communities overall. 

The benefits of stable and affordable housing are clear, but for many Atlanta residents, it remains out of reach.

To address this issue, the City of Atlanta hosted its first Affordable Housing Week last month as it continues to acknowledge residents’ concerns over costs and access to quality housing in our neighborhoods. 

Prioritizing Quality Housing for Everyone

From February 12 - 16, the City of Atlanta offered workshops and presentations for those involved in the development of affordable housing. City staff also reviewed and consulted on affordable housing projects already in their pipeline. 

Topics of the week included the permitting process, compliance, environmental impacts, and resources available to developers. The city also hosted site visits to help address questions and show parts of the process in a hands-on manner.
 

A Foundation for Success

Affordable housing and combating the effects of gentrification are subjects we think about a lot at Emmaus House. Honoring our legacy residents while ensuring that our neighbors have foundations to thrive ties directly to our mission of improving the economic and social well-being of our neighborhoods. 

Click below to learn more about how our work and mission is responding to the issue of affordable housing in our communities. 

By: Rev. Kenya A. Thompson

---

Anna Julia Haywood Cooper was an activist, educator and author. Born in 1858 to Hannah Stanley Haywood, who was a slave, Anna never knew the identity of her father.  Cooper began her impressive academic career at the age of nine at St. Augustine’s Normal and Collegiate Institute. She faced one of her first education-related prejudices here: she initially was not allowed to take a course in Greek because it was only open to male students. Cooper protested and eventually became the first woman allowed to take Greek. It is with this passion, energy and commitment that she would go on to stand up to exclusionary practices based on race and gender, throughout her entire life. 

Anna Julia Cooper valued education for all students, regardless of race or gender. While she supported vocational education programs, she strongly believed that all students deserved the opportunity to receive a “solid” college education. As the principal of the prestigious Dunbar School, a Washington D.C. preparatory school for black students, Cooper actively sought college placement and scholarships for her students with much success. When she refused to drop her ‘non-vocational’ approach, she was forced to resign as principal. Cooper spent subsequent decades as a teacher at the school, furthering her own education at Columbia University and her work as an author.   

As an author, she is widely known for her authorship of A Voice from the South by a Black Woman of the South. This work stands out as ‘one of the most forceful enduring statements of Black Feminist thought to come out of the 19th century,’ and concentrates on her philosophy that educating Black women would result in uplifting the entire race. She was a trailblazer in the Black feminist thought movement. 

Her work as a political and community activist, educator and author who stood against injustice on behalf of others is inspirational. Her life, one rooted in faith, exemplifies what Emmaus House stands for: justice and equity. As we celebrate Women’s history month, let us remember Anna Julia Haywood Cooper, and all women like her, who worked to ensure just treatment and equity in education for all people regardless of race, gender or economic status. She was committed to improving the quality of life for African American Women in particular and sought justice on behalf of all people. She broke barriers to opportunity that challenged African American women through her life’s endeavors. 

Source: Leadership Gallery: The Church Awakens-African Americans and the Struggle for Justice.

The Biden administration recently announced a new initiative to reduce banking overdraft fees—the latest in their crackdown on ‘junk fees’. The proposal could bring the fee down to as little as $3, removing an unnecessary burden on American consumers, particularly those living paycheck to paycheck.

According to research from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the nation's largest banks make nearly $8 billion a year on overdraft service fees alone.

The reduction in overdraft fees would help a large percentage of people struggling to make ends meet reserve more money for essentials like food and housing, as well as encourage the adoption of banking services in many marginalized communities.

Emmaus House partners with PNC Bank to make mobile banking units and financial literacy training available to our neighbors and residents. Click below to learn more about our partnership with PNC Bank.