{"id":123860,"date":"2026-02-26T07:07:18","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T07:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/123860\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T07:07:18","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T07:07:18","slug":"mamdanis-taps-new-nyc-social-services-boss-from-pennsylvania-following-commishs-sudden-departure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/123860\/","title":{"rendered":"Mamdani\u2019s taps new NYC social services boss from Pennsylvania following commish’s sudden departure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a>\u00a0appointed a\u00a0former Pennsylvania homelessness official,\u00a0Erin Dalton,\u00a0to head\u00a0the New York City Department of Social Services \u2014 following the\u00a0sudden departure of the agency\u2019s\u00a0commissioner earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Dalton comes from the Pittsburgh\u00a0area, where she served as director of Allegheny County\u2019s Department of Human Services.<\/p>\n

The Mamdani administration heralded her efforts there to get\u00a0homeless people off the streets<\/a>\u00a0without using the threat of\u00a0jail, as well as her implementation of a county mobile\u00a0response team that sent out mental health workers on 911 calls.<\/p>\n

Erin Dalton is Mamdani\u2019s DSS commissioner. Allegheny County Department of Human Services<\/p>\n

\u201cErin Dalton has spent decades proving that government can and must work better for people who rely on it most,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cShe has expanded access to housing, strengthened social\u00a0services\u00a0and protected our most vulnerable neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post was left vacant by Molly Wascow Park, a holdover of Mayor Eric Adams\u2019 administration, who abruptly resigned in the wake of the historic cold snap that left at least 19 New Yorkers dead on the streets, the majority of them from hypothermia.<\/p>\n

The Mamdani administration faced weeks of backlash over its handling of the fatally frigid mayor\u00a0\u2014 with critics saying the fresh-faced Democratic socialist mayor failed to do enough to get homeless people off the streets.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Erin Dalton faced criticism for her oversight of the child welfare program in Allegheny County. Allegheny County<\/p>\n

Dalton said she was \u201cdeeply grateful\u201d for the prominent spot in the new admin.<\/p>\n

\u201cDSS can reduce the painful trade-offs families make between food and medicine,\u00a0housing\u00a0and safe childcare,\u201d Dalton said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can work to help the best public servants in the country deliver\u00a0assistance\u00a0more efficiently and with greater dignity. And we can work relentlessly so that all New Yorkers have access to better resources. I can\u2019t wait to get started.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zohran Mamdani appointed a DSS commissioner. Michael Nagle for NY Post<\/p>\n

During her previous job, Dalton faced blowback for her oversight of a child welfare program in\u00a0Allegheny County, which has less than half the population of Queens.<\/p>\n

The county\u2019s AI tool used by social workers repeatedly flagged black children much more than their white counterparts for \u201cmandatory\u201d follow-ups, alleging potential neglect, according to a 2022 report\u00a0by the Associated Press<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Researchers found\u00a0black\u00a0kids had been flagged nearly a third of the time, while\u00a0white kids\u00a0only 20% of the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

County officials brushed off the concern, saying social workers had the ability to override the tool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mayor Zohran Mamdani\u00a0appointed a\u00a0former Pennsylvania homelessness official,\u00a0Erin Dalton,\u00a0to head\u00a0the New York City Department of Social Services \u2014 following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[58134,391,58133,238,28,30,29,302,41938,18151],"class_list":{"0":"post-123860","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-child-welfare","9":"tag-homelessness","10":"tag-metro","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-pennsylvania","13":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","14":"tag-pennsylvania-news","15":"tag-us-news","16":"tag-welfare","17":"tag-zohran-mamdani"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123860","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123860"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123860\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123860"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123860"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123860"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}