Maryland Governor Wes Moore has appointed University of Maryland alum and former Salisbury, Maryland, Mayor Jake Day as the state’s new secretary of housing and community development. Day took office as acting secretary on January 18.
“With each announcement, we continue to build a cabinet that reflects the state we are humbled to serve,” said Moore in a statement. “These leaders bring with them great knowledge and deep expertise. This is going to be Maryland’s decade, and our team will lead with service in their hearts.”
Day’s seven-year tenure as Salisbury’s 28th mayor saw record-breaking economic development and population growth for the Eastern Shore’s largest city. He spearheaded a landmark revitalization of the city’s downtown, which included $650 million in new construction, two youth community centers and a permanent supportive housing program—Housing First—to address the city’s homelessness; Salisbury was the first small city in the U.S. to adopt a Housing First program. In 2022, he was one of eight mayors selected for the 2022 Just City Mayor’s Fellowship, facilitated by Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Mayor’s Institute on City Design.
Day has maintained close ties with UMD, collaborating with the university’s Architecture and Partnership for Action Learning in Sustainability (PALS) Programs in 2011 as city council president to bring a community-driven design studio to Salisbury that conceived flood mitigation and revitalization plans for the city’s waterfront. Elements of the project were later integrated into the city’s master plan. As Mayor, he worked closely with the university’s Environmental Finance Center on “greening” measures, designating Salisbury as a Sustainable Maryland Certified city.
Day received a B.S. degree in Architecture from the University of Maryland in 2004. Following his time at Maryland, he earned a Master of Science in Nature, Society & Environmental Policy from Oxford University and a Master of Urban Design from Carnegie Mellon University. He is currently a Major in the U.S. Army assigned to the U.S. Army National Guard as an Information Operations and Special Technical Operations Officer with the 110th Information Operations Battalion.
Read more about Day’s appointment here.