Meet Lauren Grant

1. Can you give me your job title and a description of the work you do?

I am a part of the HMIS team at MCAH as a System Administrator II working with the Michigan and North Carolina implementations. I provide technical assistance to communities and end users via our help desk which can involve a multitude of things such as supplemental trainings, assistance with reports, or general functionality questions about the system. Additionally, I take on projects as they come up, like creating content for our annual HMIS Summit, project page visibility audits and updating training content for our HMIS learning center which is currently in transition.

2. How does your work help homeless people, or help more people become housed?

The HMIS team does not directly interact with those experiencing homelessness, however we do directly support agencies that utilize HMIS who are on the front lines providing important and much needed services in their communities. One of my goals in this position is to educate and empower these agencies and communities to collect and enter data into the HMIS that will help them demonstrate their successes and identify gaps to ensure every homeless experience is brief and not reoccurring.

3. Is there one project or achievement with MCAH that you are particularly proud?

Honestly, simply being a part of the MCAH HMIS Team is an achievement I am incredibly proud of. This is such an amazing and supportive group, and I feel so fortunate to be able to work with and learn from each of my teammates every day.

If I had to choose a specific project I am proud of, I would say the work we are doing on our HMIS Learning Center training platform. We are in the beginning stages of this major LMS transition and I already LOVE the direction we have decided to take the new/updated content. I cannot wait to dig into this project more deeply in the coming months.

4. Is there anything else you want to say or would want people to know?

First, I want to share my sincere gratitude to anyone who is a part of any work that has the goal of ending homelessness, and to assist those experiencing it. I started working in this field as a Social Work intern in 2018 and immediately knew I wanted to devote my time to serving those experiencing homelessness. Since then, I have graduated with my BSW from Wayne State University, worked as an Agency Administrator at an agency that serves homeless families, moved on to work as the communities HMIS Specialist, and am very happy to now be working for MCAH.

When I am not working I enjoy cooking with my family, reading my favorite genre of books: murder mysteries, playing board games with my daughter, and taking long walks through our neighborhood in metro Detroit.

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