An out-of-state hire brings a 98-percent outdoor homelessness reduction track record to a city in crisis
A National Search Ends in Pennsylvania
On February 25, 2026, Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced that Erin Dalton, director of the Allegheny County Department of Human Services in Pittsburgh, would become commissioner of New York City’s Department of Social Services. The appointment was notable for two reasons: Dalton comes from outside the five boroughs, and she comes with a specific track record that speaks directly to the crises Mamdani’s administration has been navigating — a near-record shelter population, at least 19 people dead on the streets during the January cold snap, and a politically painful reversal on encampment policy.
The Department of Social Services is the largest social services agency of any municipality in the United States. It includes both the Human Resources Administration and the Department of Homeless Services. HRA serves more than 3 million low-income New Yorkers annually, administering cash assistance, food stamps, Medicaid enrollment assistance, and the city’s rental assistance programs. DHS operates the shelter system that houses approximately 90,000 people on any given night under New York City’s unique and legally binding right-to-shelter mandate. Total planned spending for the combined agency in fiscal year 2027 exceeds $19 billion.
What Dalton Did in Pittsburgh
Under Dalton’s leadership in Allegheny County from 2021 through early 2026, the Department of Human Services built a coordinated winter shelter network that reduced the number of people living outdoors by approximately 98 percent, according to the mayor’s office. She redesigned the county’s mobile crisis response system, deploying behavioral health professionals to respond to 911 calls involving mental health and human services needs — a strategy that directly mirrors Mamdani’s proposed Department of Community Safety, which would route clinicians rather than police to mental health-related emergency calls. During her tenure, violent crime in the county dropped by nearly 20 percent and incarceration rates fell by nearly 10 percent.
She also addressed homeless encampments along Pittsburgh’s riverfront and downtown areas in the aftermath of the pandemic expansion. Her approach, which she described in a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette column last September, prioritized sustained outreach over enforcement: workers contacted 250 homeless individuals, more than 80 percent moved into shelter or housing, and the remaining individuals relocated voluntarily. No one was arrested as a condition of clearing a site. This approach is precisely what Mamdani campaigned on — and precisely what he has struggled to implement consistently as the political pressure of the winter deaths pushed him toward reinstating clearing operations.
The Gap Between Pittsburgh and New York
The scale difference between Allegheny County and New York City is significant and deserves honest acknowledgment. Allegheny County’s human services system serves a population in the hundreds of thousands; DSS serves millions. The right-to-shelter mandate, which has been in place in New York since 1981 and has been upheld by courts, means the city is legally required to provide emergency shelter to anyone who requests it — a guarantee with no parallel in Pennsylvania law. The shelter system Dalton will oversee is not just larger than Pittsburgh’s; it is constitutionally and legally different in ways that may require strategies her Pittsburgh experience did not develop.
Critics of the appointment — primarily from within the progressive housing and homelessness advocacy community — have raised concerns about institutional knowledge. Wasow Park, her predecessor, had spent two decades within the HRA and DHS system and understood its specific legal constraints, operational complexities, and federal funding relationships intimately. An outsider, however talented, will need time to develop that knowledge. And time is a resource the city’s most vulnerable residents cannot spare.
The AI Algorithm Question
One item from Dalton’s Pittsburgh record has drawn attention from data justice advocates. During her tenure, the Allegheny County Department of Human Services implemented a predictive risk algorithm for child welfare case screening that was widely studied and criticized for disproportionately flagging Black children for follow-up investigations. The algorithm, developed by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, was the subject of academic papers and national journalism examining algorithmic bias in social services. How Dalton will approach questions of data ethics and algorithmic fairness in New York City’s own data-heavy social services environment is a question advocates intend to raise directly with the new commissioner.
Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato praised Dalton’s “data-driven” solutions and track record. Mayor Mamdani said: “She has expanded access to housing, strengthened social services and protected our most vulnerable neighbors.” Dalton herself said she is “deeply grateful” for the opportunity and committed to advancing the mayor’s “affordability and community safety agenda.”
For NYC DSS information, visit NYC Department of Social Services. For Allegheny County DHS background, see Allegheny County DHS. For national homelessness data, see National Alliance to End Homelessness. For research on algorithmic bias in social services, see Data & Society Research Institute.
