Philip Bray began rescuing runaways and prostitutes from the streets of Atlanta, GA. in 1982. In a corner booth of a hamburger restaurant, SafeHouse Outreach (SHO) was born.
Philip’s personal life mission is the driving force behind the work of SafeHouse Outreach: changing lives, families, and communities through faith, hope and love in action and believing that a hand-up is better than a hand-out. He is a fourth generation minister representing over 70 years of service in the inner city of Atlanta.
Through Philip’s direction, SafeHouse offers parenting classes, mentoring programs, job skills training, transitional housing appointments, and other critical life skills to the homeless, at risk-youth, and those is life crisis.
Through the SHO Learning Community, Philip facilitates capacity building for smaller non-profit organizations.
Philip is known nationally as a netweaver and urban strategist because of his collaborative efforts with churches, ministries, corporations, government agencies and communities. Because of his desire to be a repairer of broken lives and restorer of streets to dwell in, his bridge-building gifts mobilize those with a heart of compassion to greater effectiveness.
He is an active member of both the state of Georgia and city of Atlanta’s Faith-Based Initiative Task Force. Philip serves on the Executive Board for Atlanta Youth Academy.
Morehouse College inducted Philip into the Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of Preachers in 2007. He is a regular speaker for urban ministry conferences and corporate diversity conferences nationally and locally. American Idol Gives Back highlighted Philip Bray and SafeHouse Outreach in 2007
Sponsored by Emory University’s Rollins School of Public Health and Goizueta Business School, SafeHouse Outreach received the 2009 MLK, Jr. Community Service Award. Philip was awarded the 2009 Leadership Character Award from the Turknett Leadership Group.
Nationally, past administrations recognized Philip and SafeHouse Outreach as one of the top faith based organizations in the nation. He assisted The White House Faith Based Office in the facilitation of roundtable discussions as well.
Today he serves as President and CEO of SafeHouse Outreach.
Philip and his wife Dacia make their home in midtown Atlanta.