Jake Day
Secretary Jacob R. (Jake) Day leads the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development and serves as a member of Governor Wes Moore’s Cabinet. As a member of the Governor’s Executive Council, Secretary Day is the Governor’s senior advisor on housing and place-based economic development and chief executive officer of the State’s housing finance agency, investing more than $2.5 billion annually to revitalize Maryland communities and address Maryland’s housing shortage.
Since his appointment, Secretary Day has enshrined the Administration’s values into the Department through the establishment of the Division of Just Communities, Division of Homeless Solutions, and the state’s housing policy powerhouse – the Division of Policy, Strategy & Research. He has overseen the successful passage of the Moore-Miller Administration’s groundbreaking Housing Package in 2024, financed more than 6,000 new housing units, and provided $191.7 million in community revitalization projects across all 24 jurisdictions.
Prior to his nomination to lead the Department, Secretary Day served as the 28th Mayor of Salisbury, Maryland. Born and raised in Salisbury, he previously served as City Council President. His tenure as Mayor was marked by a resurgent downtown, including nearly $650 million in new construction, a steeply declining crime rate, establishment of two youth community centers, a reorganized and data-driven administration, and the creation of a permanent supportive housing program to address chronic homelessness.
Secretary Day also previously worked as Director of the Center for Towns utilizing urban design, planning and development assistance to establish vibrant, sustainable cities and towns. He served as national president of the American Institute of Architecture Students, and as editor-in-chief of CRIT, a journal of architecture. Jake was elected the 79th president of the Maryland Municipal League, representing Maryland’s 157 municipalities, and was one of Maryland’s representatives to the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Local Government Advisory Committee.
A U.S. Army Major assigned to a unit in US Army Special Operations Command (USASOC), Jake is a Cavalry, Information Operations, and Special Technical Operations Officer. He is a veteran of the Global War on Terrorism and was deployed to Somalia, Kenya, Djibouti.
Secretary Day earned a Master of Science in Nature, Society & Environmental Policy from Oxford University. He also earned a Master of Urban Design from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Science in Architecture from the University of Maryland. He is the proud father to two beautiful daughters, Lilly and Olivia.
