Our history

A pioneer group of four companions from existing Emmaus communities built their own accommodation and started a skeleton enterprise.

When one room was finished, and the community could afford it, a new companion moved in, adding to the existing roles and helping create another room, and the process escalated.

Companions took ownership of their community, learnt new skills and developed in confidence and self-worth.

Emmaus had been established in France for 40 years before it came to the UK in the early 1990s, all thanks to a chance encounter at a Cambridge soup kitchen.

Emmaus started in France in 1949, shortly after the Second World War, when homelessness was a significant problem.

After the first Emmaus community was created in Neuilly-Plaisance, in the eastern suburbs of Paris, many more communities opened in France and the Emmaus movement grew across Europe, in the Americas and in Asia.