She helps find homes for people facing homelessness, guided by her unbridled dedication to improve the community
Age: 38
Poverty and homelessness cannot be solved with one trick. There are more than 3,000 people experiencing homelessness in Edmonton, and it will take a million actions fuelled by empathy and passion to help them.
Candace Noble knows what it feels like to have a positive and transformational impact on the lives of people living in poverty. As the executive services officer at the Bissell Centre, she’s devoted to helping people struggling with it.
Beyond the day-to-day work to help reduce poverty and homelessness, she once worked on a project with the City of Edmonton and non-profit groups to find safe housing for 100 people who had been living in encampments. The task was completed in just nine months.
Noble and her team also help people who are facing other challenges.
Recently, the team assisted an immigrant family of five who were facing eviction from their one-bedroom apartment after the father suffered a workplace injury.
Helping Edmontonians living on the margins gives Noble purpose. After earning a degree in theology, she intended to travel overseas to do humanitarian work. That plan was scuttled when she realized how much work there is here at home.
Noble has been working in the city’s housing and homelessness sector for 16 years. She and her colleagues at the Bissell Centre and other organizations bond with one another and the people they help.
“I understand what it is like not to have, and to struggle,” she says. Noble faced significant loss growing up, experiences that gave her a first-hand understanding of adversity, which shaped her commitment.
“I feel so privileged to be doing this work,” she says, adding that the rewards are beyond measure.
“It’s a lot of work but it is so worth it. Everyone would be doing this if they could get a taste of it.”
This article appears in the November-December 2026 issue of Edify
