Poverty & Homelessness
The Poverty & Homelessness spoke connects the current efforts around the state who work on initiatives, programs, policies, and strategies that focus on poverty, homelessness, and other related challenges with an eye toward the impacts of girls and women. This spoke focuses on working together in our communities to solve poverty by providing resources, helping people rebuild their lives, and assisting women to stabilize the crises in their lives. In terms of homelessness, the goal is to ensure that it is rare, brief, and non-recurring. The vision is that everyone has access to safe, decent, affordable housing with the needed resources and supports for self-sufficiency and well-being. Although spoke leaders, affiliates, and participants work on these challenges for all genders, they will be increasing conversations, gathering data, and considering solutions by gender.
Spoke Leaders
Karen McCandless
CEO, Community Action
LinkedIn Profile
Karen McCandless is the CEO of Community Action Services and Food Bank in Provo, Utah. Her current position, as well as being a former elected city council member and land use planner, fuel her passion to advocate for and work toward thriving communities.
Peggy Green
Program Manager, Homeless Services
LinkedIn Profile
Peggy Green is a program manager for the Utah Office of Homeless Services. Prior to this role, she was the Executive Director for Iron County Care and Share and before that was the Marketing and Recruiting Director for the Southwest Technical College.
Bold Goals
To make Utah a place where more girls and women can thrive, the Poverty & Homelessness spoke leaders, affiliates, and participants are currently working to craft bold goals for 2026 and 2030. These goals will be linked to measurable outcomes, connected to visual dashboards, and will be posted in June of 2023. Through finding, collecting, and visualizing data for this spoke, changes over time can be tracked and utilized to create momentum for additional changes.