PD&R Quarterly Update: Cash Assistance and Housing

Peggy Bailey oversees the Center’s work to protect and expand access to affordable housing, improve states’ Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and child support programs, and expand employment opportunities to housing and cash assistance recipients. Throughout her career, she has helped build connections between the housing community and health, nutrition, child welfare, and other systems of care, amid growing recognition that access to stable, affordable housing is a necessary foundation that enables people with low incomes to meet other basic needs and make progress toward achieving their hopes and dreams. Her housing policy expertise focuses on ways to expand access to rental assistance, improve and preserve public and multifamily affordable housing, advance eviction prevention and mitigation strategies, and help renters grow savings and credit histories. Bailey’s work is centered in identifying the ways racism and discrimination in housing policy have resulted in disinvestment in communities of color and created disparate outcomes for people in marginalized groups.

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 2019-2021. Prior to rejoining the Center, Bailey served in the Biden/Harris Administration as the Senior Advisor on Rental Assistance to HUD Secretary Marcia L. Fudge. She also served as the Director of Health Systems Integration for the Corporation for Supportive Housing, where she focused on Medicaid expansion and finding sustainable funding sources for the services that people with histories of homelessness and chronic health conditions need to maintain their housing. She also worked for the National Alliance to End Homelessness, the Association of Maternal and Child Health Programs, and 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.

Professor Daniel Brisson is the Director of the Center on Housing and Homelessness. Brisson earned an MSW and PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He has also received advanced training in statistical methods through the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research.

Brisson's research is focused on individuals and families struggling with issues associated with poverty. He is particularly interested in the impact of low-income neighborhoods on individuals and families. Brisson is the co-principal investigator of the intervention Your Family, Your Neighborhood. He is also working with the Mile High United Way, Denver Human Services, The Barton Institute, and many other research partners. The goal of his research and scholarship is to create equitable opportunities and systems so individuals and families living in poverty have the same chance for success as those with more financial resources.

Brisson is engaged with teaching both Masters and Doctoral students at the Graduate School of Social Work. He teaches masters courses on program evaluation and poverty and community development. He is the lead instructor for the required two-course sequence in program evaluation for second-year MSW students. Brisson also teaches advanced quantitative research methods and statistics to doctoral students and works with doctoral students through the work of the Burnes Center on Poverty and Homelessness.

Paul Joice is a Social Science Analyst in the Office of Policy Development and Research at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. He joined HUD in 2007 as a Presidential Management Fellow. In addition to his time in PD&R, Paul has worked in HUD’s Office of Community Planning and Development and served as the Team Lead for the White House Strong Cities, Strong Communities (SC2) engagement in Flint, MI. He has managed large research projects on HUD programs including the Neighborhood Stabilization Program, Choice Neighborhoods, the Rental Assistance Demonstration, and CDBG Disaster Recovery. Paul’s recent work has focused on testing alternative rent policies in assisted housing, and improving landlord participation in the Housing Choice Voucher program. Paul has a BA in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame and a Masters in Public Policy from the University of Kentucky.

Rachel Mulbry is a Program Manager at the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation (PHDC), the non-profit arm of the City’s Department of Planning and Development. Rachel’s portfolio of affordable housing preservation programs includes two residential repair loan programs – one for homeowners and one for small landlords – and two rental assistance programs, including the City of Philadelphia’s first guaranteed income pilot, PHLHousing+. She previously helped lead Philadelphia’s nationally recognized COVID-19 emergency rental assistance program. Prior to joining PHDC, she worked in the climate adaptation and environmental justice field at several non-profit organizations, including the Nature Conservancy and World Resources Institute. Rachel has a bachelor’s degree from McGill University in Montreal and a master’s degree in City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania.

Maria Sierra is an experienced professional working with those experiencing homelessness and has over 25 years of experience working in nonprofit service organizations and low-income housing. Helping individuals overcome obstacles and difficulties and making the most of themselves is a gratifying yet challenging career. Maria has a thorough knowledge of housing and social service systems and a unique perspective and understanding of the struggle individuals and families often face with meeting their basic needs. What drives her is the desire for the people she works with to experience life truly and not just navigate through their struggles. Maria holds a B.A. in Chicano Studies/Human Services from the Metropolitan State University of Denver.

Joanna Visser Adjoian, Esq., serves as a senior program officer for Spring Point Partners, where she leverages her experience in the field to identify organizations and partners that align with Spring Point’s strategic focus on social justice, specifically related to racial and gender equity and supporting intersectional approaches to overcoming systemic injustice.

Joanna is the co-founder and past co-director of the Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project, where she led the reentry team for youth and Juvenile Lifers and did policy advocacy work. Prior to co-founding YSRP, Joanna served as Associate Director and Staff Attorney of the Toll Public Interest Center at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she oversaw the Center’s 26 student pro bono projects. Before joining the Toll Center, Joanna completed a Penn Law Postgraduate Fellowship at Juvenile Law Center, where she advanced efforts to end the practice of sentencing children to life in prison without parole, including co-authoring an Amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in the landmark case of Miller v. Alabama.

Joanna is a 2014 Echoing Green Fellow, a 2016 Claneil Emerging Leader Fellow, a 2016 recipient of the Penn Law Young Alumni Award, a 2018 ACS David Carliner Public Interest Awardee, and a 2020 M. Night Shyamalan Foundation Global Emerging Leader. She is also a published author, including articles in The Champion, Court Review Journal, for the Defense, and The Legal Intelligencer. Joanna is a member of the Board of Directors of the Defender Association of Philadelphia, the American Law Institute, and the Toll Public Interest Center Advisory Board at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Joanna received both her undergraduate and law degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.