North Star Community Housing emerged from our Executive Director’s desire to bridge the gap for marginalized populations from where they were to where they want to go. Emily Blake brings a wealth of experience educating and motivating people from all walks of life and a career built at the intersection of storytelling, education, and social justice to her role as Founder and Executive Director of North Star Community Housing.

“I created this program because I believe no one should be left behind simply because they’ve fallen outside the systems meant to support them.”

Blake spent years in communications and media as a radio personality and as Associate Producer on Transition, a Detroit Urban Affairs television program — work that placed her squarely in conversation with the issues shaping Detroit and its communities. That foundation carried into a parallel career as an award-winning filmmaker, where she has consistently chosen to tackle social issues through her art — driven by a simple belief that guides everything she does: my art is my activism.

Blake, a certified Life Coach, holds an MFA in Film & TV from Mount Saint Mary’s University and a master’s degree in communication from Wayne State University, and brings over 10 years of  teaching experience across K-12 schools, college classrooms, and correctional facilities — experience she continues to build today as a substitute teacher in Washtenaw and Wayne Counties. Teaching within correctional settings in particular made lowering recidivism a personal priority for Blake, born from a firsthand understanding of how much stable housing and real support can change the trajectory of someone leaving incarceration.

That commitment became personal in another way after watching a family member navigate the realities of homelessness and the foster care system firsthand — an experience that revealed how often people with real potential fall through gaps in support, not for lack of ability, but for lack of stable ground to stand on. It’s the driving force behind North Star Community Housing: a shared-living program built to give participants exactly that ground, along with practical life skills and a genuine community to lean on while they get there.

North Star’s approach is deliberately hands-on. Blake works directly with each participant to set and pursue both short- and long-term goals, offering the kind of individualized attention off-the-shelf programs often can’t provide. At the same time, the program is built on a foundation of individual accountability — support is unconditional, but so is the expectation that participants take ownership of their own growth. That balance, more than any single service offered, is what North Star believes actually changes outcomes: real support paired with real responsibility.

Across radio, television, film, the classroom, and now North Star Community Housing, Blake’s work has always centered on one throughline: giving people the tools, dignity, and belief in their own capacity to change their story.