Miami-Dade mayor shakes up social services arm with new director and safety office

A new director is coming to the Miami-Dade County department that oversees senior meals, eldercare, Head Start childcare centers and assistance programs.

Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava on Tuesday named Sonia Grice, a longtime administrator in county government and former social worker, to be the new director of Community Action and Human Services.

Levine Cava is moving the current interim director, Annika Holder, to a new office she’s creating to lead community efforts at reducing crime, such as reentry programs for people leaving prison.

Holder, who worked for New York City’s social services arm before being hired under then-Mayor Carlos Gimenez in 2016, will become director of Levine Cava’s new Office of Neighborhood Safety.

That office will oversee implementation of the new “Peace and Prosperity Plan,” a spending blueprint commissioners approved in June that includes new dollars for youth programs, police and other initiatives aimed at reducing gun violence.

The two personnel moves mean Holder will be working under Grice, since the Neighborhood Safety office will be part of CAHS.

Levine Cava’s proposed 2022 budget lists the Neighborhood Safety office as part of Community Action and Human Services, with the transfer of four positions costing $702,000 from the county’s Corrections Department. While Levine Cava spokesperson Rachel Johnson said this week there was initially discussion of Neighborhood Safety being part of the beefed-up staff budget in the mayor’s office next year, Johnson said Wednesday that information was incorrect and the plan was always to house the new office in Community Action.

As a former social worker herself, Levine Cava said in the 2020 campaign she wanted county government to focus more on improving social services.

Grice got her start in county government in the agency in the 1990s working in human services, with a job as a social worker in a homeless shelter. She advanced to managing a neighborhood services center and overseeing contracts for the county’s domestic-violence board.

In 2007, she moved to county administration and eventually served under longtime Deputy Mayor Jack Osterholt, a Gimenez appointee who also served as director of the Regulatory and Economic Resources Department. Grice became a division chief of that department in November as Levine Cava took office, overseeing legislative affairs.

Levine Cava’s office did not provide compensation information for Grice’s new position as a department director.

In a statement, Levine Cava said of Grice: “As a compassionate leader with a long career in our human services teams, I know she will do excellent work directing the delivery of essential services to so many vulnerable communities.”

This article was updated with information showing the Office of Neighborhood Safety was housed in Community Action and Human Services in Mayor Daniella Levine Cava’s July budget proposal. It also includes corrected information from a Levine Cava spokesperson about the 2022 budget for the mayor’s office.

This story was originally published August 4, 2021 at 6:00 AM.