Peggy Bailey is the Executive Vice President for Policy and Program Development. In her role, she guides the Center’s work to strengthen, reform, and better resource federal and state programs oriented to helping all people meet basic needs like housing, health, and nutrition.

Throughout her career, she has helped build connections between housing, health, nutrition, child welfare, and other systems of care. Bailey has worked to advance delivery of government services and supports that center people and systems that make resources easier to access and flexible enough to meet people’s needs. Her work to improve programs also includes recognizing the ways in which racism and discrimination have created the inequities that persist today and must be addressed to achieve a country where all people thrive.

She first joined the Center in 2016 as the director of “Connecting the Dots: Bridging Systems for Better Health,” a Center initiative that identified opportunities to strengthen the link between housing and health policy. She then served as the Center’s VP for Housing Policy from 2019 to 2021. After a serving in the Biden-Harris Administration as the Senior Advisor on Rental Assistance to HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge, she rejoined the Center in 2022 serving as VP for Housing and Income Security before becoming the EVP.

Bailey has worked for several national organizations including the Corporation for Supportive Housing, the National Alliance to End Homelessness and the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs and started her career working for the City of Rockwall, Texas.

Bailey holds a B.A. in Government from the University of Notre Dame and a Master of Public Affairs from the University of Texas at Dallas.