Emmanuel House is a non-for-profit organization that aims to break the cycle of working class poverty. It serves impoverished and working-class families, allowing them to begin saving money through a rent program and "Networked Savings". It has been regarded as a highly successful and innovative solution to working class poverty, and has received attention from people such as Illinois Senator Dick Durbin.
The program allows families to live in a house owned by Emmanuel House and pay their usual fair rent fee, yet after 18 months the family is given back a year worth of rent as savings-enough to allow them to put a down payment on their first home.
Home ownership has long been known as a 'pathway out of poverty', and families that own homes are as much as 12 times more wealthy than rent-paying families after just 10 years.