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(RNS) — When Mamdou Seck immigrated to Atlanta from Senegal in 2023, he needed somewhere to live as he looked for work. A nonprofit, Inner-City Muslim Action Network-Atlanta, gave him one.
Today, he shares an apartment complex, Teranga Village, with about a dozen other men, all from Senegal. Launched in 2023, IMAN’s program offers subsidized housing, food, and help finding lawyers for new immigrants. Teranga means “hospitality” in Wolof, a commonly spoken language in Senegal.
“If it wasn’t for IMAN, it would have been way more difficult to just kind of get on my feet,” Seck, 34, said through a translator. “They are providing a way for me to get stable.”
IMAN launched the transitional housing program for new immigrants in 2023 after being tapped by the Atlanta mayor’s office. Hundreds of Senegalese immigrants had come to Atlanta via the southern border, according to estimates from advocacy groups. Unable to find housing, dozens were spending nights at local mosques. The Atlanta mayor’s office turned to IMAN and other nonprofit organizations for help with resettlement efforts, said Tiffany Green-Abdullah, IMAN-Atlanta’s director of development.
If it wasn’t for IMAN, it would have been way more difficult to just kind of get on my feet.
Mamdou Seck, who immigrated to Atlanta in 2023
While IMAN had not worked with new immigrants before, it had experience integrating formerly incarcerated people. The faith-based non-profit’s flagship Green Re-Entry Program offers transitional housing, job training and other services for formerly incarcerated people, or as IMAN calls them, “returning citizens.”
“We knew we had a successful program. We thought we could integrate new (immigrants) with returning citizens — and it worked,” said Green-Abdullah.
The faith-based non-profit owns two apartment buildings, one for each group. As the groups volunteer together at the center’s garden, the immigrants also learn some English, Green-Abdullah said. Returning citizens also teach the new immigrants “street smarts,” she said, like where to hang out and which areas to avoid.
IMAN’s migrant housing program, which houses up to 20 men, was created in large part due to a $603,026 grant from a now-shuttered Federal Emergency Management Agency program. Under FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program, Atlanta city government received the grant funds and distributed them to IMAN as the nonprofit submitted receipts for covered costs, including food and shelter.
On the first day of his second term, President Donald Trump issued an executive order, “Protecting the American People Against Invasion,” which directed federal agencies to audit grants supporting immigrants. That effectively led to the termination of the FEMA grant program that IMAN had relied on to fund its work.
IMAN’s leaders estimate they received about $250,000 of the promised $603,026. The organization has relied on charity and modest program costs to cover the shortfall and keep the program — which immigrants say has filled a vital need — going.
First, during Ramadan in 2025, IMAN worked with a local Islamic scholar and mosques to raise more than $40,000 from Muslim donors — part of Zakat, charitable giving required under Islamic faith, Green-Abdullah said. IMAN applied the funds toward covering residents’ rent and food costs, closing an immediate gap after the grant cut.
IMAN also began charging them a reduced rent of about $500 a month. Each apartment houses up to three people.
The transitional housing at IMAN provides a “grace period” to the recent arrivals, said Mohammed Ali, a case manager and chaplain who oversees the program. “They need that time to find their bearings,” said Ali, who was hired last year in part because he could speak with the immigrants in Arabic and Wolof.
Ali supports the immigrants with groceries, job search advice and connections for legal help. He also acts as a cultural interpreter, helping them adjust to American customs, like giving a firm handshake or looking someone in the eye.
Some of the men stay for as little as two months until they save enough money to find housing on their own, Ali said. Others, like Seck, have been living at Teranga Village for more than a year.
The men in the program entered the U.S. under Biden-era rules, following the legal process for applying for asylum and, in many cases, obtaining work permits.
Finding stable long-term housing is not easy. Some of the men face language barriers, and landlords are less likely to accept immigrants with pending asylum status as tenants, Green-Abdullah said.
For this group, Green-Abdullah said, achieving stability is success, whether that’s living on their own or in transitional housing. IMAN-Atlanta also has tried to work around the challenges by building relationships with managers of around five apartment complexes willing to accept tenants from immigrant and formerly incarcerated housing programs, Ali said.
Several other nonprofits also are working to help immigrants secure long-term housing in Atlanta. Inspiritus, an Atlanta-based social support organization, assists Senegalese immigrants in finding apartments. Senegalese Community for Aid and Self-Development, a group serving the city’s Senegalese population, pays the first few months of rent, said Ismaila Fall, a spokesperson with SENCAD.
Rising costs and the loss of federal funding have made it harder for IMAN to sustain the program. But Ali said the organization is committed to finding ways to support immigrants, calling this work “the pinnacle of what it means to be a Muslim.”
For residents, the uncertainty extends beyond housing. Georgia has been one of the top five states for federal immigration arrests, with more than 13,600 confirmed arrests from January 2025 to March 2026, according to an analysis by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. ICE arrests soared this summer in the state.
Koly Sissoko, a Senegalese native living in Teranga Village, said he knows people who are afraid to leave their house. He said he is frustrated by anti-immigrant rhetoric he hears and sees online.
“People say immigrants are not good workers. That’s absolutely wrong,” said Sissoko, who works as a package delivery worker and is focused on saving money for college so that he can pursue his dream of becoming a lawyer. “We’re just normal human beings. We’re not criminals.”