On Monday morning, 28 year-old Central District renter and homelessness policy wonk Alexis Mercedes Rinck announced her campaign for the Position 8 citywide city council seat, making her the first (and long-awaited) challenger to appointee Council Member Tanya Woo, who announced her run to retain the seat earlier this month.
Rinck was born in Pacifica, California (home to the worldâs most beautiful Taco Bell and actual taquerias, she assured me) to two teenage parents who met in a gang. âThat sounds like the start of a gritty, Oscar-award-winning movie, but it was a really hard start to life,â she told The Stranger. Her father spent her whole childhood incarcerated and went on to face chronic homelessness and substance abuse disorder. Her mother ended up losing custody in the throes of the juvenile detention system, so Rinck went to live with her grandparents.
Her grandparents lived in a âbetter-resourcedâ community where she said she could better heal from the trauma of her early childhood. She went on to become a community organizer protesting the Trump administration, a Planned Parenthood canvasser, a proud food service worker, a college graduate for both bachelors and masters degrees, and the director of subregional planning and equitable engagement at the King County Regional Homelessness Authority (KCRHA), where she developed the authorityâs multi-jurisdictional five-year plan.
âI am a living testament that when we invest in young people, regardless of what kind of adverse childhood experiences they've had, we can feel and we can actually change generations,â Rinck said.
Last November, corporate donors bought a fleet of conservative council members to do their bidding at City Hall. In just the first three months of the new councilâs term, Rinck sees âthe early signsâ of regression with talk of rolling back the minimum wage for gig workers and reversals to oversight bills. Perhaps most frighteningly of all, Rinck does not see a clear plan to address the Cityâs looming quarter-billion-dollar budget shortfall. She fears without more strong, progressive voices on the council, life-saving services that helped herâand that could have helped her parentsâcould be on the chopping block.Â
In Wonks We Trust
Rinck promises to bring unique expertise to homelessness policy. She knows the ins and outs of the regionâs complex human services apparatus and how it interacts with foster care, courts, jails, and all that. She knows where all the holes are, and she's gonna fill âem.Â
She also knows what disrupts the systemâcriminalization and sweeps. Rinck, whose mom passed away while dealing with addiction, does not support the councilâs recent law to criminalize public drug use because she doesnât think criminalization helps people recover.Â
Rinck also said that random sweeps do not help bring people inside because they separate unhoused people from their case workers, which can set them back on the road to housing. She would support a ban on sweeps in extreme weather because she knows from working at KCRHA that the only focus in those cases should be survival, not hauling stuff from one block to another. Rinck would support expanding KCRHAâs slower approach of encampment resolutions, where caseworkers establish a relationship with people at the encampment, make a list of names, and over weeksâsometimes monthsâwork to place them in shelter or housing.Â
Rinck apologized several times in her interview for going âtoo in the weedsâ on homelessness policy, but it was refreshingâThe Stranger is not convinced all the council members even know what the acronym âKCRHAâ stands for.
Rinck emphasized her belief that homelessness is a housing problemâa belief that just so happens to be founded in actual evidence. During our interview, she even pulled out a printed copy of the Mayorâs recently released draft Comprehensive Plan (sheâs usually more eco-friendly, but the housing crisis makes it worth the paper). Sheâs admittedly still working through the document, but so far she wants a plan that allows for more housing, and not just housing concentrated in âurban villages.âÂ
Still, Rinck wants to upzone âthoughtfullyâ because sheâs worried about displacement. To combat displacement, she would support community land trusts and programs to help turn renters into homeowners. So donât say sheâs never agreed with the current council!
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I know we are in the middle of a housing crisis and nothing could possibly be more important, but right now the city council is laser-focused on hiring hundreds more cops despite cities across the country failing to fill their forces to satisfy their fancy. The council has been unable to lure enough officers with hefty hiring bonuses, so theyâre talking about creative ways to bring in more boys in blue, including subsidizing their housing.Â
Rinck said the City should lower its hiring goals and put that money toward other things to promote public safety. Rinck would rather put more funding toward the recently launched dual dispatch program, mobile treatment programs, and gun violence prevention programsânot ShotSpotter, to be clear.Â
Show Me the Money
To fulfill any campaign promiseâwhether it be ensuring a healthy Office of Labor Standards or shoring up eviction prevention assistanceâRinck needs to find money in the City budget. The City currently faces a deficit of $230 million, which amounts to about 14% of the funds the Mayor and council actually steward.Â
The new council seems keen to cut in order to balance the budget, but Rinck said that could cost critical programs. Instead, she said she supports progressive revenue âwith my full heart and everything I am.â She doesnât have a favorite tax right now, but she likes the ideas from the recent report from Progressive Revenue Stabilization Taskforce and the supplemental analysis from Transit Riders Union.
When it comes to cuts, Rinck hesitated to name departments that could use a trim, but she promises she spends her free time âbopping around the budgetâ in hopes of finding a clear answer. At least sheâs showing some initiative thereâthe recently elected members liked to tell reporters they had to wait to be elected before they could see the budget.Â
No Time for Opps
Rinck told The Stranger she didnât want to waste too much precious campaign time comparing herself to the current council. She wants to focus on the issues, which should in itself make clear the differences between her, Woo, and the council as a whole.Â
Besides, despite her differences, Rinck said sheâs confident she can win over her potential future colleagues and pass policy. In her role at KCRHA, she convinced five towns in North King County to fund the authority and join the regional approach, towns she said some people had âwritten offâ as unwilling to cooperate with something related to Seattle.Â
âOften people kind of write people off and assume they wonât support something because theyâre âthat way,ââ Rinck said. âAnd sometimes thatâs true, but you gotta ask the question, you gotta have the tough conversation, you gotta try.â
After big wins for conservatives in 2023 empowered the Mayorâs borderline cultish #OneSeattle regime, Rinckâs willingness to stray from the popular opinion on council stands out, particularly in comparison to the recent appointment process over the seat sheâs running for. More than 70 council hopefuls applied for the citywide seat when progressive powerhouse Teresa Mosqueda left it vacant in January. With the stamp of approval from the councilâs corporate donors, recently failed District 2 candidate Woo won the seat despite the top contendersâ willingness to grovel before the dais.Â
Rinckâs candidacy marks a shift from pathetic ass-kissing to progressive ass-kicking.Â
âIâm of the belief that big business shouldn't be deciding who represents this City,â Rinck said. âYou know, Woo was appointed by five people. I'm looking to be elected by 100,000 people.â