Cleveland Community Development Director Alyssa Hernandez left her job last week in an exit she referred to as “abrupt.”
A spokesperson for Mayor Justin Bibb’s administration said that Hernandez resigned Friday, Nov. 14. Neither the city nor Hernandez elaborated on the reason for her departure. In a statement to Signal Cleveland, Hernandez thanked her former colleagues and the mayor’s cabinet.
“One of the disappointments of such an abrupt transition is that I didn’t have the chance to properly thank or say goodbye to the women and men who showed up every single day with heart, grit, and dedication,” she wrote. “They are the engine of Community Development, and the city is better because of them.”
The department oversees the spending of federal block grant dollars for housing and neighborhood development. Hernandez’s departure came just days after City Council approved the latest spending plan.
Chief of Staff Bradford Davy notified city officials of the resignation in an email the evening of Nov. 14. A city spokesperson shared the email with Signal Cleveland this week in response to a question about the exit.
“Our administration is grateful for Alyssa’s service and her leadership in advancing the City’s housing and neighborhood development priorities,” Davy wrote. “We thank her for her commitment and wish her the very best in her next chapter.”
Joy Anderson, a longtime city employee, will take over as interim director while the city searches for a permanent replacement.
Earlier this year, City Hall had sounded warnings about the uncertainty of continued federal block grant support before receiving word Cleveland would be receiving $28 million.
At a council committee hearing on the spending plan, Hernandez argued that her department was speeding up its process for paying community development nonprofits who rely on block grant dollars. Her comments came in response to a council member’s question about payment delays, a common complaint about City Hall.
“I am not hearing the same amount of complaints nor the same complaints that I was when I first got here,” she said. “So I can confidently stand that we are in a much better place with processing than we have been in a generation.”
Originally from the Chicago area, Hernandez worked in state government in Florida before joining the Bibb administration in 2022. In her statement, she wrote that she was now “exploring executive-level opportunities.”
Hernandez highlighted the department’s work spending federal stimulus dollars on home construction and repair and setting up a trust fund for new housing. She wrote that the department supported women- and minority-owned development firms and overhauled the way that it works with home repair vendors.
“These accomplishments represent real, structural change for residents, and I am honored to have led this work,” she wrote.
Olivera Perkins contributed reporting to this story.
