COMMUNITY MATTERS
		Getting to the Heart of our Community’s Problems

Despite Utah’s strong economic performance over the past several years, research from United Way of Salt Lake’s 2007 Community Assessment shows that many of the social ills identified in our 2004 Community Assessment are actually getting worse.

While there is some lag time between data collection periods and today’s historically low unemployment rate (which is resulting in higher wages), it is disturbing that the 2007 research shows that none of the 17 priority problems identified in the 2004 Community Assessment has improved significantly. In fact, United Way of Salt Lake (UWSL) is raising the red flag to let the community know that most of the problems—including insufficient income, lack of affordable health care and lack of affordable housing—have worsened significantly over the past three years. What’s more, these priority problems are not limited to an unfortunate few, but threaten the infrastructure of our entire community.
(Read the full article)
 
 Deborah Bayle Nielsen
 President and CEO

IMPACT MATTERS

UWSL’s 2007 Community Assessment Raises the Red Flag
on Crucial Utah Issues

United Way of Salt Lake is raising the red flag because our social health is getting worse instead of better. More and more Utah families are struggling with declining incomes, combined with rising health care and housing costs—not to mention increasing crime rates and barriers to education.

Three years ago, United Way of Salt Lake (UWSL) commissioned research to identify our communities’ most serious social problems and the underlying “core” issues that cause them. Alarmingly, our latest research, the 2007 Community Assessment, found that over the past three years, our social health became measurably worse for 13 of 17 priority problems.

Commissioned by UWSL and conducted by the Utah Foundation, the 2007 Community Assessment gathered information from numerous sources: a survey of service providers and other subject matter experts, a review of a wide range of secondary literature and data from several reliable sources, and focus groups and questionnaires with recipients of service. (Read the full article)