Meet Our New Team Member: Amber Smith

Empower Missouri is growing, and we’re excited to introduce you to several new team members over the coming weeks. Today let’s hear from Amber Smith, our new Affordable Housing Policy Manager:

Hi! My name is Amber Smith. I joined Empower Missouri three months ago as one of two Affordable Housing Policy Managers. I live and work at the Lake of the Ozarks, MO. I enjoy living at the lake for the beautiful scenery and sense of community it offers me and my family. In my new role with Empower I will be recruiting members in the south central part of the state to join our Affordable Housing Coalition and working to create tenant unions in and around the lake area. To do this I will be traveling this summer and I look forward to meeting community activists, leaders and advocates. 

I come to Empower Missouri with a background in direct service work in the domestic and sexual violence sector. I have had the privilege of working with some inspirational clients in my time as a victim services advocate. As much as I LOVE working directly with clients, I believe that in order to enact systems change we MUST work toward changing policy at a local and state level. As an undergraduate and graduate student studying political science and international relations, I realized that in order to enact meaningful change, systems of oppression need to change. That is what brought me to Empower Missouri. I look forward to assisting to create this change and to how it will directly impact those who are the most vulnerable. 

Amber Smith
Affordable Housing Policy Manager