{"id":144829,"date":"2026-02-25T14:41:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T14:41:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/144829\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T14:41:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T14:41:07","slug":"mamdani-picks-new-head-of-nyc-homeless-social-services-from-out-of-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/144829\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani picks new head of NYC homeless, social services from out of state"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor Zohran Mamdani is turning to an administrator from outside the five boroughs to lead New York City\u2019s sprawling social services agency amid near record-high homelessness, a deep shortage of affordable housing and an intense winter that has been deadly for homeless New Yorkers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Mamdani will name Erin Dalton, the head of social services in Allegheny County<\/a>, Pennsylvania, which includes Pittsburgh, his office said Wednesday. She declined to comment when contacted by Gothamist earlier this month about her potential appointment, and referred requests for comment to City Hall on Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s Department of Social Services is a crucial agency for millions of residents, including tens of thousands of people in homeless shelters and millions who receive cash, food or rental assistance. The agency includes the Department of Homeless Services and Human Resources Administration, and employs<\/a> more than 14,000 people, though hundreds of budgeted positions remain vacant.<\/p>\n

Dalton previously oversaw a county human services department serving 200,000 residents \u2014 fewer than half the number of New Yorkers receiving cash assistance benefits<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Department of Social Services oversees a shelter system now housing around 90,000 people a night through the city\u2019s unique right-to-shelter rules. The department also oversees the city\u2019s adult protective services and runs the nation\u2019s largest municipal rental assistance program.<\/p>\n

The New York Times first reported Dalton\u2019s appointment on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

She will replace outgoing commissioner Molly Wasow Park, who tendered her resignation earlier this month<\/a>. Park is a 22-year government veteran who was appointed by former Mayor Eric Adams to run the agency in 2023 after serving as a top deputy in the city\u2019s social services and housing departments. Park pushed the agency to focus on housing more homeless people, open Safe Haven beds with fewer rules than traditional shelters and issue more housing vouchers than ever before.<\/p>\n

Dalton will become commissioner as the Mamdani administration faces scrutiny over its homeless outreach policies and backlash from homeless rights advocates after resuming the dismantling of encampments and makeshift accommodations<\/a> on city sidewalks and public spaces.<\/p>\n

Mamdani said the Department of Homeless Services will decide when and where to conduct these \u201csweeps,\u201d rather than the NYPD, which former Mayor Adams had put in charge of the strategy. Mamdani promised outreach workers would target those sites every day to encourage people to accept shelter or housing.<\/p>\n

Mamdani initially vowed to stop encampment sweeps, in which police and sanitation workers remove people\u2019s belongings in an effort to drive them out of public spaces. The mayor had argued the practice is ineffective because it rarely leads to long-term shelter or permanent housing for the people affected.<\/p>\n

In September, Dalton touted her agency\u2019s encampment \u201cclosure\u201d efforts in an op-ed for the Pittsburgh Gazette<\/a>. She said the city helped move 80% of the 250 people staying outdoors into shelters or long-term housing through continuous outreach.<\/p>\n

Moving people from public spaces into shelters and housing \u201cmeans treating people as neighbors in need, not criminals,\u201d she wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe rhetoric coming out of our nation\u2019s capital \u2014 equating homelessness with crime, suggesting we can arrest our way out of the problem \u2014 is not only misleading, it\u2019s dangerous. It also shifts the focus away from solutions that actually work,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

In New York City, Dalton will need to confront looming federal budget cuts from the Trump administration that could push thousands of New Yorkers off their food benefits in the coming months.<\/p>\n

The agency issued food benefits to more than 1.7 million New Yorkers in December 2025, according to agency data<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani is turning to an administrator from outside the five boroughs to lead New York City\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144830,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[9,56,63,65,64],"class_list":{"0":"post-144829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-city","8":"tag-new-york","9":"tag-ny","10":"tag-nyc","11":"tag-nyc-headlines","12":"tag-nyc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}