Erin Dalton, the new commissioner of the New York City Department of Social Services, comes into the role confronting a daunting list of challenges. There are 85,000 people in city shelters. Many thousands of New Yorkers are likely to lose their federal benefits, including health care and food assistance. And the city is facing a multibillion-dollar budget gap.
In her first interview since taking charge of the agency, Ms. Dalton on Tuesday described how she plans to tackle what she called “some of the country’s hardest problems.”
She oversees the largest social services agency in the country, which includes managing public benefits like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP or food stamps, as well as homeless services — at a time when many cities are under pressure to reduce the number of homeless people living on the streets. Ms. Dalton will be working under a new mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who campaigned relentlessly on affordability, but spoke less about how he would help the city’s poorest residents.
“When I think about the affordability agenda, I think our goal is to really help to make sure we put money in folks’ pockets,” Ms. Dalton, 51, said. “People are eligible for a tremendous amount of benefits,” she added, including food and rental assistance, child care subsidies and help paying for their subway fare. “Our job is to make sure that everybody who’s eligible stays eligible, that they receive those supports in a timely manner and that we help to support their trajectory.”
Ms. Dalton will oversee two agencies: the Human Resources Administration, which manages benefits like food stamps, cash assistance and Medicaid, and the Department of Homeless Services. Between them, those agencies have a combined budget of more than $18 billion and employ about 14,000 people.
Before she was appointed to her new role in February, Ms. Dalton, a New Jersey native, was the director of the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, which includes Pittsburgh. During her tenure, there was a 98 percent reduction in tents and other encampment structures used by homeless people along the Pittsburgh riverfront and in its downtown, according to its Department of Human Services.
More than 80 percent of those who left the encampments worked with the county to make plans for shelter or housing, Allegheny County officials say.
The long debate in New York City over how to handle the problem of people living in the streets intensified during this year’s harsh winter. During a streak of 18 frigid days, at least 20 people died after exposure to the cold. Some of them were homeless.
After just a few days in office, Mr. Mamdani had paused sweeps aimed at clearing encampments where people were living outside. Last month, he reinstated those clearing efforts, but said that the Department of Homeless Services would direct them, instead of the Police Department, which took the lead in the past. Outreach workers will make daily visits to the sites for a week, trying to move people to shelters or long-term housing.
“I think about this as really just a focused housing effort, like lots of other focused housing efforts we have,” Ms. Dalton said. “In this case, working with people and trying to support people who are staying together in a community — and something that they probably think of as a community.”
She said it was important for the Homeless Services Department to lead these efforts because its caseworkers have often built relationships with people living outside over the course of weeks or years. Caseworkers know what services are available and are in a better position to offer the help that homeless people will actually want to accept, she said.
Their experiences also help the city assess what kinds of services should exist in the future, she said. “The feedback loop is important here too,” she said.
As commissioner, Ms. Dalton will have to grapple with the federal government’s changes to SNAP, including restrictions on who qualifies and the expansion of work requirements for the program. Work exemptions have been removed for veterans, young adults who have recently aged out of foster care, and people between the ages of 55 and 64, among others.
Those federal changes are expected to have major ramifications for New York City, where many residents are expected to lose their benefits and rely increasingly on organizations like food pantries to help with their basic needs. Advocates say it will be a complex and difficult lift for the city to manage.
The new policy, Ms. Dalton said, is intended to shift costs to states and local governments. “It’s intended to keep people from the benefits they’re eligible for,” she said.
Elizabeth A. Harris covers books and the publishing industry, reporting on industry news and examining the broader cultural impact of books. She is also an author.
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