Anchorage official overseeing city’s homelessness response resigns

An Anchorage Health Department official overseeing much of the city’s homelessness response resigned Thursday, the mayor’s office said on Friday.

Dave D’Amato became the Health Department’s deputy director last fall, the latest official to manage the city’s homelessness operations in the Mayor Dave Bronson’s administration. D’Amato was responsible for overseeing housing and homelessness, including the city’s mass care operations: the 500-person homeless shelter at Sullivan Arena and the hundreds of hotel rooms used as non-congregate shelter sites.

D’Amato’s resignation was immediate. The mayor’s office declined to say why D’Amato resigned.

D’Amato’s resignation is the latest in a string of departures of city officials responsible for Anchorage’s homelessness response, and comes as the city embarks on an ambitious plan to fast-track multiple projects in order to close the Sullivan shelter and other mass care sites by the end of June.

D’Amato oversaw the Division of Human Services, which includes the departments of Child Care Licensing, Community Development, Homelessness and Housing Services, and the Disability Resource Center, according to the mayor’s office.

[City’s plan to close Sullivan Arena homeless shelter before July faces big challenges]

Anchorage Health Department Director Joe Gerace is currently overseeing Sullivan Arena and other mass care operations along with others in the department, according to the mayor’s office.

D’Amato had also been part of the negotiation team from the mayor’s office working with the Anchorage Assembly to plan and implement the city’s mass care exit strategy. However, a spokesman for the mayor said that D’Amato was replaced “weeks ago” in that role.

D’Amato is a former health care lobbyist who, before working for the city on homelessness, worked with United Way of Anchorage and briefly as the interim director for the Anchorage Coalition to End Homelessness, according to a report from Alaska Public Media.

The city’s homelessness leadership has seen multiple shakeups under the Bronson administration. The previous Human Services division manager, Nicole Lebo, was fired in November. The department’s mass care branch chief, Shawn Hays, was fired in October, at the same time that another Anchorage official who had guided operations at the Sullivan, Bob Doehl, resigned. And the mayor’s former homelessness coordinator, Dr. John Morris, also resigned in October.

The city, with the help of private sector partners, is currently working to implement a homelessness plan negotiated between Bronson’s administration and the Assembly. Roughly 500 people are staying in the Sullivan daily, with an additional 400 in the city’s non-congregate shelter sites at hotels, and more living outside in illegal camps. Shelter or housing is needed for about 1,000 people, and numerous challenges are mounting against the city’s timeline to close its operations.

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly said Dave D’Amato was the city’s homelessness coordinator.