Marietta Nonprofit Plans 15 Tiny Homes for Homeless Students and Families

Marietta City Schools currently has 458 students enrolled who lack stable housing. Glory Haus, a faith-based nonprofit developer on Cobb Parkway, drew up a site-specific answer: Emmanuel's Village, 15 tiny homes on 1.5 acres behind the existing Glory Haus campus, designed to shelter those students and their families while the school district and MUST Ministries provide wraparound support.

The $3.2 million project earned unanimous city council approval more than a year ago, a 7-0 vote that cleared the permit hurdles that typically stall projects like this for years. What followed was a funding gap. Glory Haus CEO Molly Holm and her team have raised $1.4 million toward the budget and need roughly $100,000 more before construction can start. The organization applied for funding through Gov. Brian Kemp's Rehoused Georgia initiative, a $50 million state fund targeting housing instability; that application's outcome will largely set the construction timeline.

Each of the 15 units will include a kitchen, living room, bathroom, lofted beds, heat and air conditioning, and internet access. The site plan also includes a playground, a community garden, and a community center converted from a Disney World Fort Wilderness cabin. Families will be placed in transitional housing for 12 to 18 months while case managers from MUST Ministries and Marietta City Schools work with them toward permanent housing.

Holm described the operating model in terms that go beyond shelter logistics. The village aims to "help them figure out how to babysit each other's kids, how to carpool together, give them a community by providing Wednesday night supper." The shared-infrastructure approach reflects a broader bet that dense, service-rich tiny-home communities outperform scattered-site shelter by compressing the time families spend in crisis.

For the 458 students on Marietta City Schools' homeless roster, that compression matters most in terms of school continuity. Children who cycle through temporary arrangements are disproportionately likely to miss school days, change schools mid-year, or drop off enrollment rosters entirely. Emmanuel's Village ties housing directly to a single school district, sidestepping the bureaucratic friction that forces families to choose between proximity to a shelter bed and proximity to their child's classroom.

The project has the site, the permits, and most of the money. The last $100,000 and a pending state grant decision are all that stand between the village and a groundbreaking.