Shelter House Community Shelter and Transition Services
Crissy Canganelli has served as executive director of Shelter House since 1998. She has since led Shelter House through considerable evolution, guiding the organization from one house in Iowa City’s Northside to an eight-building operation providing life-saving interventions to 2,000 people annually. She does it with equal parts strength and grace, employing data-driven initiatives that yield proven solutions to prevent and end homelessness in our community.
Crissy has a bachelor’s and master’s in economics and urban planning from the University of Iowa. She lends her expertise to myriad endeavors: as founding member and vice president of the Housing Trust Fund of Johnson County and founding member of Iowa’s Balance of State Continuum of Care Governance Board. Crissy served on the Johnson County Affordable Housing Coalition and the governor-appointed Iowa Council on Homelessness as chair of the Policy and Planning Committee.
Crissy received the Iowa City Human Rights Commission’s Individual Leadership within a Service Organization award; United Way of Johnson County’s Agency Executive of the Year award; and Iowa City Press-Citizen’s Person of the Year award. The Iowa Finance Authority awarded her the top honor for an Iowan in the field, the Kay Anderson Friend of Iowa award.