A gift just in time for the holidays will allow St. Vincent de Paul (SVdP) Georgia, one of the state’s oldest and largest social services nonprofits, to help thousands of individuals facing homelessness.
On Dec. 1, the Chamblee-based organization announced that Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sánchez Bezos are fueling its continued work in the community with a $5 million grant from the Bezos Day 1 Families Fund. This investment is the largest gift in the nonprofit’s history, Mike Mies, executive director of SVdP Georgia, said in a statement.
“We are tremendously grateful for the Bezos Day 1 Families Fund award. It affirms the value of our mission and will greatly expand our capacity to walk alongside families in crisis, moving them to stable housing and helping to build pathways to long-term stability,” Mies said.
SVdP Georgia is part of the eighth annual cohort of organizations across the U.S. receiving the Day 1 Families Fund monies to deepen their work to assist families with safe and stable housing.
“We are counting on this award to be a catalyst for other individuals and organizations to join us in prioritizing assistance to families who are sleeping outside, in cars and places not meant for human habitation,” Mies said.
The organization was identified to receive this grant by a group of national advisors who are leading advocates on bringing expertise on homelessness, housing policy, and effective approaches and solutions to family homelessness.
Since its inception in 2018, Day 1 Families Fund has awarded 280 grants totaling more than $850 million to organizations serving families in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and Guam.
The Day 1 Families Fund grant recipients have flexibility to use the funds in the ways that are most impactful in their communities, making the grant a game-changer for organizations on the frontline of the family homelessness crisis. Recipients will use their funds to support families experiencing homelessness to access critical services, regain stable housing, and achieve well-being.
The funding is expected to be distributed in the coming weeks to support a five-year program, which will begin in early 2026, Bea Perdue, chief development officer, told Rough Draft Atlanta. The direct impact to SVdP programming will be funding for rapid identification of barriers to housing instability and immediate attention to critical needs associated with an emergency or crisis, Perdue said.
The organization hopes to help 2,500 unhoused families secure affordable, safe, and stable housing through the grant. Since 1903, St. Vincent has supported Georgia’s homeless and unstably housed residents. The organization’s support in 2024 alone led to more than 300,000 individuals receiving assistance with food, housing, and health. The organization take a strategic approach alongside the holistic deployment of volunteers and wraparound programming and services.
More than 3,500 volunteers across 74 chapters of St. Vincent de Paul’s efforts to respond face-to-face to neighbors in need of housing. A team of professionals at the Chamblee Service Center and organization’s hub, respond to requests for help in areas of the state not served by a Vincentian Chapter.
Their help and the Day 1 Families Fund is crucial at a time where Georgians are enduring the rising cost of living and reductions in government aid, Perdue said. “Across Georgia low- and middle-income households are finding it more difficult to remain stably housed,” Perdue said. “Once they are unhoused, there are so many systematic barriers that make it difficult to become rehoused. Each year, we see a marked increase in requests for aid from unhoused and unstably housed neighbors. These are the kind of resources we have never been able to direct to one of our most troubling community challenges.”