16 minute read
Community Mission Expands Location, Resources
With an eye toward future need, Neighborhood Cooperative Ministry is growing space, partnerships to serve the most vulnerable.
Around the time Neighborhood Cooperative Ministry (NCM) came together, the term “homeless” was just becoming an everyday term in the United States. From the 1870s, there had been documentation on people who had no permanent residence, but they were considered to be on the fringes of society. They were mainly low-income, low-skilled and often people of color. Many former enslaved people made up this demographic. In the 1980s, the number of homeless people in the U.S. increased substantially, making the issue a part of the public consciousness. Sociologists cited many factors, but the main two were an economic recession that began in the 1970s and the widespread deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill. By the time several churches in the Southwest Gwinnett area formed Norcross Cooperative Ministry in 1988, the mission was primarily to provide services to low-income and homeless families in the community. The doors opened in May 1988 in a portion of a small basement adjacent to Norcross First Baptist Church, and the ministry provided food to a few families a week and perhaps even temporary financial assistance to get them back on their feet. Over time, as community needs changed, so has the mission and scope of services provided by NCM. Currently, food and shelter are among the most sought-after resources, but NCM also helps with the immediate needs of emergency financial assistance, clothing assistance, medical/dental assistance, emergency housing assistance, food and groceries, utility assistance, prescription assistance and prayer requests. Programs and services include job training assistance, health fairs, vacation Bible school, a Christmas fund and personal empowerment through classes in money management, financial literacy, job readiness, resume assistance and healthy living.
Words by Arlinda Smith Broady Photography by Richard Phillips
L to r, Elizabeth Gross, NCM Board Chair, Wendy Willis, boardmember and Ryan Jones, Director of Community Development.
Above, NCM headquarters, right, Jim Warr, owner of Tikiz serving the kids during VBS, sponsored by NCM
As a faith-based, non-profit, ecumenical ministry dedicated to providing emergency assistance to families in Norcross, Peachtree Corners, Doraville and Tucker, NCM is supported by 23 local churches and numerous businesses, civic and social organizations, foundations and individuals. A recent tour of the new facility at 500 Pinnacle Court in Norcross illustrated how much of an impact NCM has on the community and how much more needs to be done. The process begins with intake, where the needs of the individual, couple or family is assessed. “Ideally, we’d like to help keep people housed. It’s a lot less expensive if you can keep them housed, versus letting them get evicted and then trying to get them rehoused,” said Elizabeth Gross, NCM Board Chair. “But we also do short term. We’ll put people up in extended stay hotels as well; that’s part of it.” Like many municipalities across the country, Gwinnett County is hit heavily with people with no place to live. In the past just about anyone with a decent job didn’t have to worry about keeping a roof over their head, but now skyrocketing rents and low wages have made the prospect of being unhoused a reality for many. Turning old strip malls, abandoned big box warehouses and former motels into low-income and/or temporary housing is becoming more and more of a solution. “It’s particularly important in areas like Gwinnett, where there’s not a lot of new land,” said Gross. “That’s a very creative solution. It’s kind of similar to what they did with Paul Duke High School. …It was kind of a warehouse, and then they converted it into a high school because they couldn’t find any more land.” Fifty years ago, suburban areas like Gwinnett County weren’t equated with homelessness. Many people in this area thought of it as a problem for downtown Atlanta. “If I asked you, what does the homeless person in downtown Atlanta look like, you would probably say that they were male, in their mid-20s to 30s,” said Gross. “The average homeless person in Gwinnett is about nine years old. Because what we see out here, as opposed to what is in downtown Atlanta, is single moms with two or three kids, and they might be living out of their car; they might
Tom Fishburne, a board member with a volunteer
be living an extended stay lodging; they might be living one week with a relative or friend.” Any type of housing instability — bouncing around between different residences, living in a car, sleeping on the streets — is a form of homelessness because there is no permanent place of their own for those people to live. “We really want to try to keep people housed, if at all possible, because every time you allow someone to get evicted, it changes everything,” said Gross. “Maybe you have to move …and your kids are now in a new school district. Now they’ve got to make all new friends. Well, then maybe they don’t want to go to school because they don’t have any friends there. It sets a new normal. And it’s always a lower normal.” Many of the NCM clients start out as middle class, but a catastrophe such as a prolonged illness, a car breaking down or some other unexpected major expense sends them to NCM. Gross told a story about one client who thought she just needed a little assistance. She was an hourly worker and had health benefits, but a bad asthma attack kept her off the job and she’d run out of sick pay. She couldn’t pay her rent and got evicted. She couldn’t work and couldn’t afford to go to a doctor or buy the medicine she needed to get well. “She burst into tears. And she’s like, ‘I just can’t keep my head above water,’” said Gross. By the time she came to NCM, she’d been kicked out of the extended stay lodging and was living in her car with her dog. “All it took was one bad episode to change her life from O.K. to seeking our help,” said Gross. While helping people find lodging is one of the most impactful aspects of what NCM does, it’s far from the only thing it does.
Hunger in Gwinnett County
The most recent data from Feeding America — a national non-profit whose mission is to advance change by ensuring equitable access to nutritious food for all in partnership with food banks, policymakers, supporters and the communities it serves — shows that a little more than 10% of Americans are food insecure. That number is more than 14% in Gwinnett
Jill Swenson working the “clothes closet.”
County. Food insecurity refers to the USDA’s measure of a lack of access, at times, to enough food for an active, healthy life for all household members and limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate foods. Food insecure households are not necessarily food insecure all the time. Food insecurity may reflect a household’s need to make trade-offs between important basic needs, such as housing or medical bills, and purchasing nutritionally adequate foods, according to Feeding America. The Pinnacle Court location allows NCM space to warehouse much more food — both non-perishable and fresh foods such as meat, dairy and produce. Through picking up food donations, NCM is able to spread the word about the community need and enlist others in its mission. “What I like about food is it’s more opportunities to build relationships and introduce them into the transformational type of programming that we offer,” said Ryan Jones, Director of Community Development. “A lot of our food at this point is donated by individuals. We get to see them more, so we have more opportunities to grow that relationship.” Furthering the goal of adding more fresh foods, the mission has raised money to add a 600-square-foot walk-in refrigerator. “This is gonna take us about a year, but we want to offer our clients healthier food options,” said Jones. “We have already done our fundraising. We have the money to build some major freezer and refrigerated units.” The program is also aiming to get a refrigerated truck to expand the options of foods the mission can go pick up. The benefits will go beyond filling food coffers. “That’s going to be amazing. And that’s going to be a lot of change for us because we also will institute a reclaimed food program where we go out to groceries and restaurants and stuff like that,” said Jones. “That’s going to require more volunteers as well. So, getting the word out and is key to helping us accomplish that and be successful.”
Amy Sol, founder of Next Generation Focus
Teamwork makes the dream work
Jones explained that NCM can’t do everything, so partnerships play a large role in meeting goals. Amy Sol, founder of Next Generation Focus (NGF), stopped by to pick up snacks for a summer learning program sponsored by her nonprofit. “We provide after school services in Gwinnett County and Forsyth County,” she said. “Right now, we have a summer camp going and I came here to get some snacks for our kiddos. We have over 80 students in person [getting help with] reading, writing and math skills, learning those skills. And then we have P.E., arts, music and STEM [science, technology, engineering and math].” Sol and Next Generation Focus are part of NCM’s “Save-A-Family” program, which has a goal of helping 40 families keep their homes. The Save-A-Family program is designed to end the cycle of poverty. With 45% of the children in NCM’s service area growing up below the poverty line, only 4% of those children will move up to the middle class, according to statistics. “Prior to addressing anything else, we must ensure these children and their families have the food, shelter and transportation that are fundamental to achieving educational outcomes, healthy lives and reaching economic stability,” said Gross. The Save-A-Family program allows families to qualify for additional financial support from NCM under the condition of participating in programming designed to increase resiliency and financial stability. Sol explained that the summer program serves as reinforcement to keep learning going yearround. To make sure students are learning what they need to stay on track, NGF partners with Norcross schools to know what kind of remediation and forward-looking lessons they need to focus on. “We also measure our students’ growth. So, we test them in the beginning, then in the middle and then at the end to see where they are,” said Sol. “Then we focus on those skills. So, this month, we are reviewing everything that we learned this year. Next month we’re previewing everything that they’ll be learning next year.” The program aims to help every child. It begins with pre-K and kindergarten readiness and goes all the way through 12th with college and career prep. There is also an on-site vacation Bible school program. “We have 30 kids,” said Jones. “And being a vessel to bring those kids here on campus and to make them feel comfortable is awesome. And that’s why VBS is a big, big part of what we do.” A testimonial video on NCM’s website showed several mothers who were on the brink of being homeless due to jobs that were temporarily halted because the pandemic had shut down the business where they worked.
Foundations: 33% Individuals: 30% Corporations: 16% Government programs: 14% Churches: 6%
Neighborhood Cooperative Ministry by the numbers
$848,918 – Direct Aid to Clients (Rent, utilities, hotel and medical assistance) 258,642 – Pounds of Food Distributed 20,732 – Number of individuals served 12,062 – Number of hours donated by volunteers
Contact Info Website: ourncm.org Email: info@ourncm.org Phone: 770-263-0013
The “Save A Family” program helped these women, and many others, find ways to keep their homes, obtain new jobs and get medical assistance when needed. They also helped their children during the particularly chaotic time of at-home learning. “It’s hard for kids to concentrate on school when they’re hungry,” said Jones. “So, the design of the program is to support families with their children. And since we can’t do everything, we want to be really good at the basic needs — the food, the shelter, the clothes — and we have talented partners, like Next Generation Focus, that are here to support us and our mission.”
Clothing
Another area that takes up a lot of space at NCM is the clothing closet. Like the food pantry, a lot of manual labor is needed to sort clothes and assist clients with finding what they need for school, work, etc. Jill Swenson is in charge of making sure clients have what they need for job interviews and the like. “On an average day, I put in like four miles
because I’m walking from here to there to there to there to there and walking because somebody will say, ‘I need a black shirt because I’m working at Waffle House,’” she said. Jones pointed out that NCM works one-on-one with clients. The day Southwest Gwinnett Magazine was on site, Waffle House and Better Work Gwinnett were hosting a job fair. “Sometime Waffle House will hire people on the spot, same day,” said Jones. “The offer has really good benefits, they’re a good company to work for and they desperately need the staff.” He added that Better Work Gwinnett is also a good partner because it streamlines the application process. “Their thing is eliminating barriers to work. They have a one-page thing. We go to their website, one page, you fill it out and then it goes to all of their employment partners,” Jones said. Recently, NCM partnered with a mobile drug-screening company that comes on site so the applicant can get everything done in one place — apply, drug screen and sometimes obtain the right clothes and shoes for the job. Jones recalled a client from Honduras who was certified in his native country to drive a forklift. He had the skills, so one of the volunteers found a way to get him in a refresher course that came with a certification test at the end. That man now has a good-paying job. “Sometimes, it’s as easy as that. And then sometimes it’s totally complicated and not that easy,” Jones said.
Potential employee interviewed by hiring organization
One-stop community services
During the pandemic, NCM was actually able to increase funding — so much so, that it paid off the mortgage for the new building and is building a reserve for expansion. It is currently using about 13,000 square feet of the 43,000 square feet available and leasing out space that brings in about $100,000 in rent a year. “Part of our plan is to grow out and use more of the space of the building, and also have nonprofits that offer complimentary services live here and work here,” said Gross. “Our first partner moved in about two months ago. It’s Hope Atlanta. They are a longtime, very wellknown nonprofit. One thing they do is rapid rehousing. We’re helping people for a shorter timeframe. They work with somebody all the way until they’re able to secure permanent housing. It’s a logical thing for them to be in the building with us.” Gross added that NCM had been able to raise $2.1 million during COVID because people really believe in the organization’s mission. “Furthermore, people understood that in the next 20 years, this county is going to double in size,” she said. “If we continue on this trajectory, the need is going to keep pace with that.” Shirley Cabe, executive director of NCM has been involved since day one. “Our growth and our mission have been steady,” Cabe said. “We never rushed, never had any, what I would call, big catastrophic issues. We do a great job of analyzing the market and what the client needs are and staying ahead of that.” With speculation that population as well as need will increase in future decades, NCM has already set a plan in place. “In response to the understanding of how great the need was going to be in the future, we really got serious,” said Gross. “We kind of upped our focus and we purchased this building. We also realized that we were going to need to raise a lot of money, and that we probably needed a stronger board. And so, we totally revamped our board. “We also overhauled all our technology, because we realized that to handle more clients, you have to have the technology in place. We did an analysis of the staff with how we can best augment what we were doing. Then we added a Director of Development, and we added a Controller.” Although all the changes may sound more like a Fortune 500 corporation than a community mission, NCM has never lost sight of leading with the heart. “That’s the key right there,” said Cabe. “The heart has never really changed. It’s just kind of the methodology.” ##
Neighborhood Cooperative Ministry Annual Gala
Date: Thursday, September 29 Time: 6-10 p.m. Venue: Atlanta Tech Park — 107 Technology Parkway, Peachtree Corners Tickets: $100 Sponsors: Corporate and personal sponsorship opportunities are available. For more information, please contact Ryan Jones at ryan@ourncm.org.
This year, the theme and focus for the Neighborhood Cooperative Ministries Fall Gala is “Save a Family.” All monies raised at the gala will go towards assisting clients and families in the Southwest Gwinnett area stay in their homes. The gala will feature entertainment auctioneer Dean Crownover, who has more than 25 years of entertainment and auction experience. He will bring the comedy and fun to this event. In addition to an outstanding silent and live auction, the gala will offer a 5-star menu provided by a local caterer Chef David. Adult beverages will be offered a local business, Peachtree Growler Company. The NCM Fall Gala is a great opportunity to have fun and support needy families in the community.
