First Grace Community Alliance

The mission of First Grace Community Alliance (FGCA) is to work with and for people in need, especially women+ and their children, by meeting food, housing and other emergency needs, while simultaneously challenging systemic poverty in the greater New Orleans area. FGCA does this through its two main programs: Hagar's House and Project Ishmael.

Hagar's House offers:
o A beautiful, clean, safe place to rest and call home
o An open and inclusive space that welcomes women, children, and trans and gender-nonconforming folks
o An intentional community that is actively engaged in undoing the root causes of poverty
o Holistic programming focused on physical health, emotional/spiritual health and social justice
o A Capacity Building partnership where residents meet weekly with staff to set their own long and short-term goals and to determine their own path for meeting those goals
o A savings program in which working residents save 70% of their income, ideally $3,000 at the time of moving out
o Healthy food and space to plant in a community garden

Project Ishmael is our free children's immigration legal program and its goals are:
1) to meet some immigration needs of children in New Orleans,
2) to meet legal needs of the women and children who live in Hagar's House (by coordinating a volunteer base of attorneys and legal resources), &
3) to challenge systemic injustice that allows children and their parents to be harassed, incarcerated, deported, or torn from their families based on race or immigration status.

Testimonials

I'm from Honduras and I have four children. I arrived in New Orleans 3 months pregnant. I came because I was very sick. I'm so close to having my own home soon! I will miss the help that you've given. When I come home and am tired from work, and the staff helps with my children.