On August 11, 2026, a family somewhere in the U.S. state of Georgia crossed a threshold that represented much more than a change of address. With that move from an extended-stay motel into stable housing, St. Vincent de Paul Georgia’s Motel-to-Home program reached its 1,000th family. Those thousand households include 1,662 children and come from 40 counties across the state.

The milestone is impressive for a program that began with only 13 families. It is also unsettling, because the achievement reveals the scale of a form of homelessness and housing insecurity that is easy to overlook. Extended-stay motels are scattered along commercial highways and suburban corridors throughout the United States. To a traveler, they may look like ordinary temporary accommodations. For thousands of families, however, they have become expensive long-term residences without the security, space, protections, or stability normally associated with a home.

St. Vincent de Paul Georgia estimates that approximately 10,000 families in the state are living in extended-stay motels. There is no comprehensive official count, partly because people paying for their own motel rooms are frequently absent from the statistics used to measure homelessness. Yet their housing situation can be extraordinarily precarious: miss a weekly payment, lose work hours, face a medical bill or car repair, and the roof over the family may disappear almost immediately.

Motel-to-Home was designed for a particular group within that hidden population. Its participants are generally not families with no income and no realistic ability to pay rent. Many are working and can sustain an ordinary monthly rent once they are housed. What they cannot do is cross the costly and complicated barrier between paying for a motel and qualifying for an apartment.

The discovery behind the program

The roots of the initiative reach back to Norcross, a city in Gwinnett County northeast of Atlanta. In 2019, a local housing initiative called LiveNorcross published a study with a revealing title: When Extended-Stay Becomes Home. Researchers and community volunteers surveyed residents in nine extended-stay motels, gathering 175 complete in-person responses in an effort to understand who was living there and why.

The results challenged stereotypes about motel residents. Many respondents were local people who had lived in Gwinnett County for years. Sixty-nine percent had at least one full-time job, and the great majority had originally regarded motel living as temporary. Yet 62 percent had been living in an extended-stay setting for at least a year. Nearly half had experienced an eviction, often creating a record that made landlords reluctant to accept a new rental application.

The financial contradiction was striking. Families were often spending as much as, or more than, they would have paid for an apartment. Because motel charges had to be paid weekly or even daily, however, there was little opportunity to accumulate the money necessary for a security deposit, application fees, the first month’s rent, outstanding eviction debt, or other move-in expenses. Eighty-five percent of those surveyed were considered housing-cost burdened, and some households were spending extraordinarily high proportions of their income simply to remain in a motel room.

The study identified a potentially solvable gap. Seventy-nine percent of respondents said they needed only temporary assistance to obtain permanent housing. In other words, many did not need indefinite rental subsidies. They needed help getting through the door.

Volunteer caseworkers from St. Vincent de Paul Georgia were seeing the same pattern in the families they visited. The organization responded by developing Motel-to-Home in 2019 and launching a pilot in January 2020 with 13 families, supported by United Way of Greater Atlanta and the City of Norcross.

What began as a response to one suburban community would eventually become a much broader housing initiative.

Why leaving a motel can be harder than paying rent

Motel living creates a peculiar financial trap. A family may be spending thousands of dollars every month and still appear unqualified to rent an apartment that costs considerably less.

A landlord may require a security deposit and the first month’s rent before move-in. An application can generate additional fees, with no guarantee of approval. A low credit score may require a larger deposit. An old eviction filing can lead to an automatic rejection. A debt owed to a former landlord may effectively close much of the rental market. Families who repeatedly apply and are rejected can lose hundreds or thousands of dollars in application charges alone.

Meanwhile, the motel bill does not stop.

A 2026 Georgia State University study of extended-stay hotels in DeKalb County, which includes part of metropolitan Atlanta, illustrates how persistent the problem remains. Researchers surveyed residents across 42 hotels and estimated that more than 4,600 people were living in them, including 1,635 children. Seventy-eight percent of surveyed households had at least one working adult, and nearly a quarter had someone working multiple jobs.

Their average hotel cost was approximately $1,852 a month, slightly higher than the average county rent cited by the researchers. Yet 61 percent reported rental income-screening requirements as an obstacle to permanent housing, 48 percent could not afford a deposit, 36 percent cited poor credit, and 33 percent pointed to previous evictions. More than 60 percent had been living in extended-stay hotels for at least a year.

The findings closely echo what Norcross researchers documented seven years earlier. Employment and willingness to pay are often present. Access is not.

Motel-to-Home focuses on the missing bridge

St. Vincent de Paul Georgia does not simply give participants apartments, nor does Motel-to-Home function as a permanent rent-payment program. Its model is closer to a bridge: identify households that have enough regular income to sustain housing, determine what is preventing them from obtaining it, and then address those specific obstacles.

Current applicants must normally demonstrate verifiable household income sufficient to cover rent and other expenses. They must have spent at least 30 days in a hotel or motel and provide documentation of their stay and income. The program also applies an affordability standard: SVdP Georgia generally will not help a family move into housing when its share of rent would exceed 35 percent of monthly income, unless a subsidy or voucher lowers the household’s actual obligation.

That requirement may initially sound restrictive, particularly in an expensive housing market. Its purpose, however, is to avoid solving the move-in problem only to create an unsustainable rent problem a few months later. Motel-to-Home is built around housing retention rather than simply counting how many families sign leases.

Financial assistance can include up to $2,000 toward move-in deposits, subject to available funding and eligibility. Yet money is only one component. Families can receive individualized housing navigation, case management and care coordination, financial coaching, assistance locating landlords willing to consider applicants with past housing problems, furniture and household goods, and other forms of practical support.

Participants are expected to remain engaged after the move. Program materials describe periodic progress surveys, quarterly workshops and, in applicable cases, one-on-one work with a caseworker over a period of approximately 12 months. Workshops may address budgeting, tenant responsibilities and other skills intended to make housing stability sustainable.

The difference between Motel-to-Home and a simple emergency payment is therefore significant. The check helps open the door; the accompanying relationship is intended to help the family remain behind that door.

Families participating in a St. Vincent de Paul Georgia Motel-to-Home workshop receive support aimed at strengthening financial confidence and long-term housing stability, while WISH Georgia volunteers provide activities for their children. Photo: St. Vincent de Paul Georgia.

Bringing landlords into the solution

One of the program’s most important developments has been its work with landlords and property managers. A family with adequate income may still encounter repeated rejection if an eviction, low credit score or another risk factor appears during screening. Unless someone addresses that side of the housing equation, financial assistance alone may not be enough.

SVdP Georgia created a landlord engagement initiative to establish relationships with property owners willing to consider participants who are otherwise capable of paying rent. By the time the program reached its 1,000-family milestone, the organization reported relationships with 354 landlords and property-management partners.

The arrangement is not based on making the Society the permanent payer of a participant’s rent. Families housed through the program remain responsible for their own ongoing rental payments. What St. Vincent de Paul contributes is screening, preparation and continuing caseworker involvement, giving a landlord greater confidence that difficulties can be addressed before they become crises.

That approach also changes the role of charitable intervention. Instead of treating an eviction record or poor credit history as a permanent label, the program asks whether the present household has the income, support and readiness necessary to become a successful tenant now.

The landlord network therefore serves a structural purpose. A deposit may solve one financial problem; a landlord willing to offer a second chance solves an access problem.

From 13 families to a statewide reach

The growth has been substantial. A 2023 expansion supported by QuikTrip, which committed more than $1 million to the initiative, helped Motel-to-Home move beyond its original geographic footprint. At that stage, the program was operating throughout a dozen counties in metropolitan Atlanta and had begun accepting participants outside the metro region.

Three years later, the 1,000 families served represented 40 Georgia counties. SVdP Georgia reported that more than $2 million had been invested directly in move-in assistance since the initiative began.

Other supporters have included United Way of Greater Atlanta, Gas South, PNC and the Liz Blake Giving Fund. Some partnerships have financed not simply deposits but also savings incentives and income-advancement efforts, reflecting an increasing emphasis on what happens after a family is housed.

St. Vincent de Paul Georgia receives a $40,000 contribution from PNC Bank in support of its Motel-to-Home program, one of several partnerships that have helped families overcome the financial barriers separating motel living from stable housing. Photo: St. Vincent de Paul Georgia.

The economic arithmetic helps explain why the intervention can have such a large effect. According to SVdP Georgia’s latest figures, families entering Motel-to-Home were paying an average of approximately $2,189 each month for extended-stay motel accommodation. Once they moved into stable housing, their average monthly rent was approximately $1,302.

That is an average difference of $887 every month.

SVdP Georgia calculates that, cumulatively, participating families have retained approximately $19 million that otherwise would have been spent on motel rooms. Money previously consumed simply maintaining a week-to-week roof can instead be available for groceries, transportation, debt reduction, education, healthcare, savings or the countless ordinary costs that make family life possible.

What stable housing can mean for a family

Statistics can make the scale of Motel-to-Home visible, but individual stories explain why that scale matters.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution documented the experience of Scudorise Burke, a mother of three whose family spent more than a year moving between motels and a homeless shelter after financial setbacks. She had income, but an eviction filing had damaged her ability to pass rental screening. By the spring of 2023, she was paying $599 every week for a motel room.

At that rate, saving enough for a deposit and first month’s rent was nearly impossible. The family was not without resources, yet those resources were being consumed by the very arrangement from which they were trying to escape.

After Burke entered Motel-to-Home, the program connected her with a landlord in Chamblee, Georgia, paid her security deposit and first month’s rent, helped provide furniture, and connected her with financial education and continuing support. She signed a lease late in 2023.

Her story illustrates the central premise of the program: sometimes the distance between homelessness and a stable home is not an endless need for subsidy. It can be one deposit, one landlord prepared to look beyond an eviction record, one caseworker able to negotiate a complicated process, and enough support to prevent the next emergency from undoing the progress.

That distinction does not make the underlying housing crisis less serious. It identifies one group of families for whom a comparatively focused intervention can produce lasting change.

The crucial figure: what happens one year later

Moving into an apartment is only the first measure of success. Remaining there is considerably more important.

SVdP Georgia reports that 88 percent of Motel-to-Home families remain stably housed after 12 months. Earlier public reporting placed the rate at approximately 85 percent, suggesting that the organization has been tracking retention as the program has expanded.

The figure matters because the families entering Motel-to-Home are not beginning from easy circumstances. According to the organization, 97 percent of participating heads of household are women and 95 percent are Black or African American; the average participating family has two children. Many arrive after evictions, employment disruptions, debt, family crises or long periods in motel rooms.

The program nevertheless has boundaries. It cannot assist every applicant. SVdP Georgia currently reports receiving roughly 500 Motel-to-Home applications each month. Many households do not meet the eligibility requirements, particularly when their income is insufficient to sustain market rent even after move-in costs are covered.

For those families, a deposit is not enough. They may need rental subsidies, deeply affordable housing, emergency shelter, supportive housing, income assistance or other interventions. St. Vincent de Paul says it attempts to refer ineligible applicants to other resources, while Motel-to-Home remains focused on households for whom temporary assistance can realistically produce sustainable housing.

This is an important limitation rather than a weakness in the model. Motel-to-Home is not presented as the solution to every form of homelessness. It is a targeted response to a specific and frequently overlooked housing trap.

An achievement that also exposes the size of the crisis

Reaching 1,000 families offers reason for celebration, yet the waiting demand keeps the milestone from becoming a comfortable ending. If an estimated 10,000 Georgia families are living in extended-stay motels and hundreds of applications continue to arrive each month, the thousandth move represents both success and unfinished work.

Recent research makes that contradiction particularly clear. The 2026 Georgia State University study found more than 2,000 households living in extended-stay hotels in DeKalb County alone. Researchers documented mold, insects and rodents, crime and safety concerns, overcrowding, educational disruption for children, and long periods of residence in facilities designed for temporary lodging.

There is also a statistical invisibility surrounding these families. People who pay for their own motel rooms generally do not fit neatly into the most familiar public image of homelessness. They may leave the motel every morning in work clothes, take their children to school, own a car and pay hundreds of dollars every week for shelter. Their presence can therefore disappear both socially and administratively.

Motel-to-Home addresses that invisibility by starting with the reality families are actually living rather than with a narrow definition of what homelessness is supposed to look like.

Measuring the next chapter

After six years of growth and 1,000 families housed, St. Vincent de Paul Georgia is now preparing to subject the program to more rigorous evaluation.

The organization has announced a partnership with the University of Notre Dame’s Wilson Sheehan Lab for Economic Opportunities, or LEO. Researchers plan to evaluate Motel-to-Home through a randomized controlled trial, examining whether and how the intervention improves financial security, health and long-term stability.

That research is significant because program retention figures, while encouraging, do not by themselves prove which outcomes were caused by the intervention. A rigorous evaluation can help separate the effect of the program from the characteristics of families who were already positioned to succeed, determine which components are most effective, and identify whether the model can be replicated elsewhere.

There are already signs that other Vincentian communities see value in the approach. The National Council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul in the United States has reported that a St. Vincent de Paul program in Richmond, Virginia, modeled its own Motel-to-Home effort closely on the Georgia initiative before adapting it to local circumstances.

What began with 175 interviews in nine motels in Norcross may therefore have implications well beyond Georgia.

A Vincentian response built around accompaniment

There is something recognizably Vincentian in the architecture of Motel-to-Home. The program does not begin with an abstract category of “the homeless.” It begins with encounters with particular families, listens to the barriers they describe, and then tries to organize practical resources around those realities.

The approach also goes beyond immediate relief. Paying a deposit may be the urgent act of assistance, yet landlord relationships, financial coaching, casework, furniture, workshops, savings programs and long-term follow-up address the conditions that can determine whether a family remains housed. Direct service and attention to systems are not treated as opposing choices.

For 1,000 families in Georgia, that combination has meant the difference between paying week after week for a motel room and holding the key to a home of their own. The milestone deserves recognition precisely because Motel-to-Home has dealt with something seemingly ordinary—deposits, leases, credit checks and landlords—and revealed how transformative practical assistance can become when it is joined to sustained accompaniment.

The next thousand families remain the challenge.