Under Mayor
Rudolph Giuliani, Barrios-Paoli was the City's Commissioner of the
Human Resources Administration. She was forced out of the post due to her criticism of moves made by the administration. In 2008 Barrios-Paoli served as Mayor
Michael Bloomberg's
Commissioner for the Aging where she oversaw the city's programs for the elderly. Mayor-elect
Bill de Blasio appointed Barrios-Paoli his
deputy mayor for health and human services on December 12, 2013, effective January 1, 2014. She resigned in September 2015 to become the volunteer chairwoman of the board of the city's
Health and Hospitals Corporation—which runs the city’s public hospitals. This announcement came during an ongoing crisis of New York City's homelessness (an area of the Deputy Mayor's purview) and increased media scrutiny of the administration's policies. Barrios-Paoli served as Senior Adviser to the President,
Hunter College as of early 2023. In September 2024, Barrios-Paoli returned to the City government to help with the
2024 Asylum crisis. ==References==