June 2020 Celebrating 10 years of resilience & support.

We continue to celebrate ten years of resilience, response, and building sustainability for Atlanta's most vulnerable.

Gordon Ellis, ACSS’s Director of Operations and Programs, is one of the organization’s longest tenured and accomplished team members.  The Atlanta Center for Self Sufficiency, which is celebrating its tenth year, was born out of a merger between Samaritan House of Atlanta and Atlanta Enterprise Center. Shortly after the merger, Gordon joined the team and has been a key part of ACSS's success ever since. With a lot of passion and heart, and a detailed understanding of the workforce development space, Gordon played an instrumental role in the establishment of ACSS’s flagship workforce development program, CareerWorks . These days, he leads recruiting, training, and supervising our core team of staff and dedicated volunteers. Click here to listen to Gordon tell stories about his earliest days at ACSS, as well as one of his most challenging and rewarding clients...

As we celebrate our 10th anniversary, we celebrate the many, many staff members who have been the hands, feet, eyes, ears, and heart of this organization.

10-Year Anniversary Campaign

What does ten years of impact in the city of Atlanta mean in real dollars? It’s frankly hard to calculate, but it’s a great thought experiment. Think about it! Over the past 10 years, ACSS has aided over 3,500 vulnerable individuals in achieving stability and improving their quality of life. With each individual client, we’ve helped them to end their cycle of homelessness and become employed contributing members of their communities. The work being done at ACSS through its CareerWorks workforce development program has countless, exponentially expanding benefits as… These clients are now contributing to the tax base and earning their own incomes. This is important as we know “unemployment has costs to a society that are more than just financial. Unemployed individuals not only lose income but also face challenges to their physical and mental health.” We now have over 3,500 former clients who are no longer dependent on public assistance programs. “Some studies have found that leaving a person to remain chronically homeless costs taxpayers as much as $30,000 to $50,000 per year;” and They’re now healthy and vital, not showing up in emergency rooms for acute care. “Lacking basic resources and support networks, they are five times more likely than non-homeless folks to be admitted to a hospital inpatient unit and stay on average four days longer, at a cost of $2,000 to $4,000 a day.” Please consider making a gift in honor of this important anniversary and help us to continue to help vulnerable individuals achieve great outcomes and strengthen their communities. Your gift of… $10 will purchase a MARTA card to assist a potential worker going to interviews and attending job training courses.  $100 supplements a month of computer lab access for clients during their training and job search process. $1000 underwrites the full cost for two individuals to complete our CareerWorks Bootcamp.

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Stories of Transformation

Jean & Najee, a young couple fresh out of high school, moved to Atlanta from New York with dreams to start a new life. Unfortunately, they had not yet mastered the art of budgeting. Before they knew it, they found their bills mounting, and then they were being evicted from their beautiful apartment, even sadly having to give up their beloved dog. With few options for couples to be housed together in homeless shelters in Atlanta, Jean and Najee found themselves running a constant hamster wheel of searching for work and trying to keep themselves together. Najee got a night shift job, but the shelter where they were staying made them walk the streets during the day to look for work. He found his way to a day program for homeless youth that would let him sleep during the day. Najee says it was a hard time in their lives because he was working nonstop, and he felt bad that they were having to struggle so much. He offered that Jean should move back to New York to be with her family. Jean said, "No, you are my family. We are in this together."

Shelter from the storm… Eventually, Jean & Najee found their way to a stable housing unit where they have their own apartment for the foreseeable future. Not only that, but they were each able to participate in ACSS's CareerWorks training program. Jean is now a CNA, and Najee is on track to file his application to the police academy. Read their full story of transformation here.

Continuing Our Pivot

As we continue to explore how best to serve our clients in the time of COVID, ACSS continues to demonstrate remarkable resilience and creativity.  This week, staff began testing our new online curriculum and capabilities through Zoom. We look forward to launching opportunities for our clients to engage with virtual training in the coming weeks!

Last year, you helped to create nearly 200 success stories and every single one matters.

362 # of individuals employed in 2019

75 # of veterans employed in 2019

$2,090 avg. monthly starting salary in 2019

Atlanta Center for Self-Sufficiency (ACSS) For more info about us go to atlantacss.org

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