Each year, over 450 individuals and families impacted by HIV/AIDS find permanent supportive housing through Status: Home, Atlanta’s oldest and largest organization dedicated exclusively to this work. Formerly known as Jerusalem House, the nonprofit has served the Greater Atlanta area since 1988, remaining steadfast in its mission to provide stable housing for those affected by HIV. Over the years, its approach has grown to include not just a home but a full ecosystem of care built on property ownership, strategic partnerships, and wraparound services.
At the core of Status: Home’s work is a powerful belief: housing is healthcare. With a range of housing options and integrated support, the organization helps residents do more than get by, it helps them rebuild. In a city facing both a housing crisis and persistent health inequities, this work fills a critical and too often overlooked public health gap.
Research has long confirmed that stable housing significantly improves health outcomes for people living with HIV. Those with secure housing are more likely to access consistent care, maintain viral suppression, and manage their health long term. Still, housing remains chronically underfunded and too often disconnected from mainstream healthcare systems.
Status: Home closes that gap by integrating comprehensive support services directly into its housing programs. Residents don’t just receive a place to live, they gain access to medical case management, peer networks, and behavioral health care right where they live. The organization’s model is built for permanence, not transition, with housing as the cornerstone of sustained wellness and self-defined progress.
Guided by Maryum Phillips, Status: Home has expanded its reach without compromising its firmly rooted mission. With over 20 years of nonprofit executive experience, Maryum combines strategic skills with personal familiarity with the aspirations of communities. As Chair of the National HIV/AIDS Housing Coalition Board of Directors, Maryum Phillips helps bridge Status: Home’s on-the-ground work with broader national efforts to advance housing equity and improve care for people living with HIV. Her dual roles allow her to elevate local insights into policy conversations that shape the future of HIV housing nationwide.
With a staff of 30 and an annual budget of $9.7 million, Status: Home ranks among the 75 largest nonprofits in Atlanta. Under Maryum’s leadership, the organization successfully rebranded from Jerusalem House to Status: Home, a shift that honors its legacy while better reflecting its mission and growing impact.
HIV is a medical condition, and unlike others, it comes with stigma, judgment, misunderstanding, or discrimination. For some, that stigma creates an extra burden in accessing a safe place to call home or remaining linked to care. Status: Home transforms that, providing more than a place to call home, it provides a sense of belonging and respect.
The people served by Status: Home are often those left out of the spotlight: low-income and homeless individuals and families living with HIV in Atlanta. Yet they’re among the most impacted by the epidemic and among those who face the greatest barriers to care. By taking housing off their list of daily worries, Status: Home gives residents something many haven’t had in a long time: room to breathe. That space allows people to focus on their health, reconnect with loved ones, and begin to feel hopeful again.
This kind of steady, affirming support is especially critical for communities hit hardest by HIV, particularly Black Atlantans, women, and LGBTQ+ individuals who still face deep disparities in both housing and healthcare access.
As Atlanta’s housing market continues to shift, Status: Home has made deliberate moves to protect its community. In recent years, the organization has purchased five apartment buildings, an investment that doesn’t just offer stability, but sends a clear message: this space belongs to the people who live here. Owning property gives the agency long-term control over affordability and ensures that housing remains accessible to those who need it most.
One of those buildings sits on a street, with a name tied to a past that doesn’t reflect the future Status: Home is building. In partnership with the Atlanta City Council, the agency is working to rename it in honor of co-founder Evelyn Ullman. It’s a small change with big meaning, reclaiming space and history in the name of community. The proposal is to rename it Ullman Court, in honor of Status: Home co-founder Evelyn Ullman. It’s a powerful example of how the organization ties physical space to the legacy and leadership of people who helped shape its vision.
Where many transitional housing programs focus on quick exits, Status: Home takes a different approach, one that honors time, healing, and the complexity of people’s lives. Success here isn’t about how fast someone can move on. It’s about giving residents the space and support to define their own goals, whether that means managing a chronic illness, reconnecting with family, or taking steps toward employment.
This approach centers the individual, not a timeline. By building flexibility into its programs, Status: Home allows residents to move at their own pace. In a system that often measures progress by checkboxes, this model offers something deeper: real recovery, rooted in dignity and choice.
In Atlanta, Status: Home is the only provider dedicated exclusively to permanent housing for people living with HIV/AIDS, a role that makes it indispensable to the city’s public health and housing landscape. But the lessons from its work go beyond local impact. As cities across the country face growing housing crises and widening health disparities, Status: Home offers a model that’s both practical and powerful.
Backed by funding from federal, state, and local sources, including HUD’s HOPWA program, the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, and Fulton and DeKalb counties, Status: Home shows what’s possible when long-term care and community ownership go hand in hand. It proves that when organizations are deeply rooted in the people they serve, they don’t just provide support. They help reshape the systems that were never built for everyone.
Because no one can focus on their health without a place to call home, housing must be more than a policy goal, it must be a public health priority. Status: Home is showing what’s possible when stability comes first: stigma fades, healing begins, and people reclaim the future they deserve.
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