Annual Report 2021: Stories of Impact

Maia Gibbons is a self-identified data geek – and it guides her work at Health Care for the Homeless in Baltimore. “Data is what allows us to make decisions about improving the care that we’re providing for the clients that we’re working with,” she said. “We can leverage data to measure the effectiveness of our services and to create goals for improving what we’re doing.”

Maia earned her Master of Public Health degree as a Bloomberg American Health Initiative Fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The fellowship allowed her to grow, afford further education, and improve lives in her community through Health Care for the Homeless. “This is an awesome program that finds individuals who are partnered with organizations. So, there’s this three-way relationship between the fellow, the organization, and the school. The tools I learned at the school really allowed me to build capacity with my organization.”

Today, her data analysis is helping her organization develop sustainable solutions to homelessness. “I just see time and time again that the story that leads to an individual’s homelessness is the story of failed systems,” she explained. Now, Maia is focused on rebuilding those systems and supporting people in need.