Katie Michaud
Katie Michaud (BA IDS and Spanish 2011):
Program Manger at the Housing Consumer Education Center - Framingham, Massachusetts
In terms of development related issues, Katie Michaud says she is most passionate about homelessness and prevention.
“A lot of people are not really getting the support that they need,” says Michaud.
In her career, Michaud seeks to identify triggers that can contribute to someone’s overall stability, such as food security or mental health. Michaud says her focus is to look “at people holistically and how we can work on just moving them even a degree up the spectrum, so that they get closer to being financially stable.”
For three years, Michaud has worked as a program manger for a Housing Consumer Education Center (HCEC) in Framingham, Massachusetts. Michaud’s department resides under the agency South Middlesex Opportunity Council (SMOC).
Michaud says the HCEC offers a range of different social services, including a triage unit that deals with homelessness and housing issues, financial assistance and homelessness prevention programs, home ownership classes, foreclosure prevention and a pilot program focusing on unaccompanied youth.
It’s really rewarding to be able to be a resource. Anybody who comes into our doors or calls our hotline, we can really sit down with them and help them navigate the system.
“It’s really rewarding to be able to be a resource.” says Michaud. “Anybody who comes into our doors or calls our hotline, we can really sit down with them and help them navigate the system.”
“The best part is when you know that you refer them or give them advice and know that they are going to be successful after that referral.”
Starting in September, Michaud transited into a new position and department within SMOC as the director of a fuel assistance program called the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP).
Running from winter to spring, the program provides applicants with flat rate benefits to help with oil, electric and gas heating bills.
In this position, Michaud supervises a staff of six people, certifying applications and working with utility company vendors.
“It’s a really great program,” says Michaud. “This is a tried and true program that’s been around for a long time. It’s really well established.”
“It definitely helps people.”
Originally from Maine, Michaud says she was drawn to Dalhousie University for its diversity and emphasis on research. In 2007, Michaud began her undergraduate studies at Dalhousie.
“I really loved Dalhousie,” says Michaud. “I loved the faculty there. I loved my classes. I thought they were really engaging.”
Michaud says she enjoyed the flexibility of the international development degree. Rather than focus on the same types of classes or subjects, Michaud says the fluid approach allowed her to “understand all the complexities of many different issues, instead of specializing in one.”
It has made my experience professionally more versatile in what I can choose to do or where I can choose to go in this field.
“It has made my experience professionally more versatile in what I can choose to do or where I can choose to go in this field.”
Michaud advises future and current IDS students to not limit themselves to specific subjects.
“The really wonderful thing about the IDS major is that you can take so many different classes, so many different subjects,” says Michaud. “It will help you to be more well-rounded and understand the field in a more comprehensive way.”
In addition, Michaud says the biggest takeaway of her undergraduate degree was the understanding of issues from a micro and macro perspective.
“Looking at how these issues relate on a systemic level,” says Michaud. “Whether it’s a local level, at the national level or the global level and how it’s very interconnected.”
Michaud graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in International Development Studies and Spanish in 2011. In 2012, she received a Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (CELTA) from the University of Cambridge in Boston, Massachusetts.
For Michaud, her work with HCEC “absolutely” applies to her international development degree. She says her position involves development related skills, such as advocacy, program implementation and data analysis.
“It’s a great major,” says Michaud. “I really loved it and would not have changed it.”
The really wonderful thing about the IDS major is that you can take so many different classes, so many different subjects. It will help you to be more well-rounded and understand the field in a more comprehensive way.