Hello, I'm your host, Brian Callinan.
New concerns about public safety are rising around the
University of Washington after the murder of a student, a
19-year-old transgender woman.
So what's the City of Seattle doing about it?
Plus what's the latest on the plan to increase the capacity
of homeless shelters citywide?
I'm talking with position 8 at-large council member Alexis
Mercedes-Rink about these issues and the questions
you're sending in too.
Coming up on City Inside Out, Council Edition.
South End, Southeast Seattle has sacrificed enough for transit,
and so now is not a moment to be cutting corners.
All that and more coming up next on City Inside
Out, Council Edition.
And here she is, Alexis Mercedes-Rink, the council
member in the position eight at large role for the city council.
Great to have you here.
Always a pleasure to be here, Brian.
And I know we're smiling right now, but I need to start
with something that's really difficult to talk about,
a recent and horrifying event, the murder of a 19-year-old
woman, a UW student, happened to be a transgender
woman, stabbed to death in the laundry room of a
student housing apartment.
A suspect has been arrested.
It's not clear what motivated this attack, but there's a
lot of concern about this.
The UW Trans Collective offered some condolences, of course,
And I wanted to put in a brief excerpt from their post here.
Here's what they wrote.
Trans women, particularly trans women of color, are
among the most vulnerable populations to violent crimes.
You've been an advocate for trans rights on the city
council ever since you joined.
Before that, too, I wanted your perspective on what's
happening because a lot of people are scared about this.
I mean, it is absolutely devastating.
And just in the past 24 hours, we've learned the name of the
woman who our community has lost, and her name
was Juniper Blessing.
And may her memory be a blessing.
This is absolutely tragic.
And I think for many in community, while at this time
we don't know a motive, this is being felt by our LGBTQIA
community, because we know that trans women
experience disproportionately high rates of violence against
them and have a lower life expectancy because of that.
And so what has really come up in this moment is, too, also
the work that we've been doing on council trying to reckon with
this reality and also reality where right now across the
United States we have over 700 pieces of anti-trans
legislation being considered across the country
with 23 anti-trans pieces of legislation actually
passing this year alone.
And I've read about this in the Seattle Gay News.
Just to jump on this, it sounds like a lot of people are
migrating to Seattle to try to escape some of it.
Can you talk about that?
We're in a moment of a lot of internal displacement,
and this year I actually sponsored a resolution
for Trans Day of Visibility, which in this moment right now
where many states are trying to erase trans people, felt
really important to do.
And we brought in folks from our LGBTQIA Commission, folks from
trans-led organizations such as Gender Justice League,
Lavender Rights Project, Utopia Washington, to
really talk about what's happening in this country to our
trans community and how Seattle must be a refuge to the trans
community. And what we're hearing on the ground from
mutual aid organizations that we have a lot
of folks coming into our city and because of our affordability
challenges are having trouble finding a place to live.
And so I'm trying to really approach
this work in a way where we're supporting our new
neighbors coming in who are frankly fleeing and I
think are much more akin to refugees in this moment.
Is it a state of emergency type
thing? I know a few people have talked about that.
Yeah, it's, I think we need to be approaching
this like it is an emerging issue and an emergency because
the Lemkin Institute, Policy Institute, has actually
put forward a red flag notice for the United States marking
that we're in the early stages of genocide against
trans people.
And so us as a city, you know, I'll be working
and have been working with advocates
and trans-led organizations to get an idea
of what are we currently seeing within our communities
and what are the needs right now.
And my office is working with the mayor's office
to incorporate what we're hearing from community
into concrete actions the city can take
to really build on the work that we have been doing
to make sure that trans folks are able to not just live here
but thrive here.
- Yeah, yeah.
And I want to touch on a larger public safety issue at UW and
around the area there, beyond the concerns about trans people.
Ava wrote this message.
University of Washington is now on lists of the top ten most
dangerous campuses in the U.S.
due to regularly reported assaults, stray bullets
through a sorority last year, and tragically, a woman
was murdered while doing her laundry this week.
And this is the case we're referring to here.
What are you doing to improve the safety and
security of the campus and surrounding neighborhood?
Thank you very much for that email, Ava.
And I've seen at least one list where UW was
on the top 10 most dangerous colleges.
Others show it might be the top 30.
But regardless, there are some major continuing concerns
around campus here, a place where you've worked,
where you got your master's degree.
Talk to me about this.
Ava wants to know what the city's doing about public safety
in and around the University of Washington.
Yeah. It's a -- thank you for the question, Ava.
I know as someone who lived in the neighborhood for some time
when I was a grad student and after.
And also when I was an employee at the UW,
there had been a number of assaults
that had happened during my time working at the UW
and even just living in the neighborhood,
experienced and saw things myself.
And so we need to be clear that beefing
up our response systems are tremendously important.
So having timely responses, but we need to be working
in the realm of prevention too.
And so partnering with the university,
I think there's a bit of a bifurcation that happens
when things happen on UW campus.
You know, the UW...
UW cops take care of that.
Yes, we have the UW PD, and I know actually a former
council member, Sally Clark, now heads over public
safety over there.
But we need to do our part to really bridge that connection
between city and campus work
to be working on some strategies.
The U District partnership
has been a really great partner to the city
in identifying some of those street-level challenges
challenges and working towards activating outreach resources
and having a real target approach to be really
reaching out to folks who may be experiencing
homelessness in the area, identifying what's happening
on the street level and trying to problem solve.
Beefing up that work is going to be really important
because while responding is part of it, we need to be preventing
things from happening in the first place.
Okay, so potentially some
more police in the area, potentially some of these
groups that can help prevent things a little more sensitive.
Well, I'd lift up that we have some of the, when I'm talking
about targeted outreach, talking about law enforcement
assisted diversion programs, so our LEAD program.
They have an acronym they call SNF, which
is like a neighborhood framework for engagement,
for understanding what is happening and diverting
folks when possible.
But just trying to problem solve, what is
the exact ecosystem?
what are the kind of activities that we're seeing and how can
we bring in service providers and also redirect
to the appropriate systems where needed.
Thank you very much for that.
I want to make sure I move on with you and get an
update on the city's work to expand the amount of shelter
space it has for people who are experiencing homelessness.
The mayor promoted this legislation.
She wants 1,000 new units of emergency housing
by the end of the year.
You pushed for two amendments to this legislation,
having staff on site 24 hours a day in these
sanctioned encampments, making sure there are
case managers for people who might have more needs, too.
Why did you make those amendments?
And bottom line it for me, what kind of impact
should Seattleites expect from these new encampments?
Well, at the top, I would state that it is really refreshing
to see some urgency behind scaling housing options and
emergency housing options.
So appreciation to Mayor Wilson and her team for
really pushing this forward.
The legislation that was just considered by the
Land Use Committee that I had amendments on is
part of a suite of three pieces of legislation,
two of which that have already passed council.
One of those is a budget bill
to allocate the initial round of funding for this
shelter expansion.
The other piece is related to
assigning authority to FAS, which should help
in expediting bringing online some of these sites.
And the last piece is what we're calling the census legislation,
which allows for additional, basically to expand the
number of allowable units on a given site.
Now, I think me and my colleagues
in many ways want to make sure that we're not only
bringing online more housing, more emergency
housing and shelter options, but we want to make sure that it is
a quality, that the livability in these communities and
the shelter is going to be good for the folks living
there. And so in many ways, that means services.
And so I know from my work previously in
human services, I mean, I've heard from folks
experiencing homelessness who maybe got into a service
and they were like, gosh, I thought I'd have a case manager.
I never see them.
I thought, you know, we'd be able to get
these services and some kind of a breakdown on that point.
And in that same vein, I've talked to frontline human
services providers who are like, I have a caseload of
over 35 folks, and I can't spend that time with that
person and helping them for their path to stabilization.
And so the two amendments that I put forward are really
rooted on this fact that, one, we want to make sure that
there's folks on site managing whatever may be coming up.
It could be a normal, normal day, but making
sure there's somebody there who's just managing.
There's at least two staff there that are managing operations,
particularly in overnight hours.
And then the second amendment I put forward is related
to a case management ratio, specifically speaking to
setting a goal for our high acuity or how we might
say high needs clients
for one case manager for every 15 folks.
And this is something that's been derived from a lot of the
folks who work really closely with high needs individuals.
we need to make sure that we have a case management
ratio so we have a worker able to like really
show up and tend to that person's needs as they're
navigating whatever their life circumstances may
be so really my amendments that I put forward are rooted in just
wanting to make this work and I think having a well-supported
workforce is going to be really key to delivering on successful
successful villages, not just for the folks who
are working in them, the folks who are living in
them, but also the surrounding neighborhoods.
Right. And I want to talk about paying for this
and doing it in a sustainable way, because there was
an interesting move by the mayor recently.
She talked with me here on the Seattle Channel about some
of her budget priorities.
Now, normally these kinds of
discussions happen in late summer, early fall,
but with a budget deficit of about $150 million
for next year.
She wants to discuss this right now.
She's asking city departments to look at 5%--
excuse me, 5% to 10% reductions in spending.
We are taking the next step, which is basically going back
and having those departments, like, go into more depth
in terms of understanding what it would look like
to cut, you know, a certain amount
of some program or service, like, what the
impact set would be.
And so that's kind of, like, the process
that we are in right now.
So, yes, it is premature for us to say, like,
We're going to slash this or slash this, right?
And then at the same time, we are looking at what
our revenue options are.
What do you think about this process and what the mayor is
considering for the budget?
It feels like she's pushing this a little early.
And I know the council doesn't like to get pushed
around on this kind of stuff.
What's going on?
Yeah, I don't know if I'd characterize
it as a push per se, but rather, you know,
this is a new mayoral administration and one that
has inherited a substantial structural budget deficit.
So I'm actually relieved that she's spending time now when
we're not in the throes and the heat of budget season
where things are really tense.
But we're trying to hash out what kind of options do
we even have on the table so we can have a much more
robust discussion come budget.
And so I appreciate the work so we can try
and sort out, you know, what are the kind of
policy considerations that we have to have if we're
looking at reductions?
and also what are the revenue options?
And we got here as the result of many previous
mayoral administrations and councils' decisions.
And, you know, I know that through exploring really
every possible option, it's going to give us
the ability to just think more creatively about
how we get through this.
If we're going to fix this, we are going to need
everyone working together to really sort out
what are our priorities and how we get here.
But I know that we have a lot of big brains
in the city budget office and finance office,
the dedicated leadership of our executive departments
and the work of my council colleagues and their teams
and our central staff.
We're going to figure this out.
I did want to talk about, I saw a recent headline
in Publicola about this.
The mayor of the council might be considering
creating a fire district in Seattle
so the fire department could get funding
from a separate levy, which would help the budget gap.
This is basically how the parks are set up
through the Parks District here.
I'm looking at this and I'm thinking,
the SFD is a pretty critical service.
Do we need a separate levy to support this?
Can you talk about this idea?
I know it's still in the early stages here,
but what's going on?
Yeah, it's still being cooked up a little bit.
Just by way of background, the state legislature
gave municipalities like City of Seattle,
authorized us to be able to establish a fire district
and with some set funding sources.
I think what we're trying to
grapple with as a city is we're approaching the caps to
what is the allowable amount we can raise with property taxes.
I think this entire situation speaks to the reality that
municipalities across Washington are facing structural budget
deficits. We're constrained on the types of revenue that we can
raise and I've been a force - force is an
overstatement - I've been active in Olympia trying to push
our state delegation to be working with their
colleagues to allow us to have additional
options more and expand authority for jurisdictions
around for jurisdictions to be able to raise new
kinds of funding but this was a a tax that was
authorized in the most recent in session and it's an
option that has in the city.
And so I think in service of us really getting creative
around how can we have continuity of services,
I understand why this is on the table.
I'm waiting to see, you know, what ultimately comes before us
in terms of a proposal.
But this is one of the options that is available
to us at this time.
And again, all options need to be on the table
as we're navigating this budget deficit.
Thank you.
I know we're really early with that piece,
but I appreciate the commentary.
I want to talk about another economic challenge if I
could and that would be the budget of the King County
Regional Homelessness Authority It's been around for
six years as you know It's had continuing financial
problems including at least eight million dollars
of its budget that is unaccounted for according to
this recent forensic audit Seattle City Council member
council member Rivera said at a recent press conference
it's actually time to shut the KCRHA down.
This latest forensic evaluation is just the last straw.
The evaluation shows a pattern of mismanagement of funds that
can no longer be tolerated.
It is time to find a different way to make this
very important work happen.
I know you've been working on this with Councilmember Foster.
Is it time to end the KCRHA?
Where are we with this?
Yeah, let's start just on the point that the findings
of the KCRHA forensic evaluation are serious.
They require immediate but thoughtful action as we
work to address the very real financial challenges.
You're not saying shut it down tomorrow, it sounds like.
But we can't cause further harm to people
experiencing homelessness.
And moving with a kind of knee-jerk reaction could
cause a lot of ultimate harm.
So that is why myself and Councilmember Foster
actually have sponsored a resolution to really
navigate what is a really complex moment
for all of us right now.
And this resolution actually just passed out of my
committee this morning.
I chair over our Human Services, Labor and Economic
Development Committee.
But I'd also uplift that myself and Councilmember Foster
actually sit on the King County Regional Homelessness
Authority Governing Board.
We are both new to the governing board.
It was at our second meeting that we received
the forensic evaluation.
And what we have been focused on in trying to navigate
this moment has been really holding center that we need to
resolve the fiscal challenges, financial challenges,
and keep an eye towards maintaining services for people
experiencing homelessness wherever we go from here.
And so we've put together this resolution, and it
does a couple of things.
It summarizes the findings of the forensic evaluation.
It summarizes the timeline and deliverables of KCRHA over
the coming months, including a corrective action plan.
It requests that the mayor's office make a recommendation
and an initial assessment on that corrective action plan
and then requires the mayor's office to make an official
recommendation on whether we should dissolve, restructure,
or continue with KCRHA.
And that's by August 1st?
Did I say that right?
Yes, that is correct.
There is a timeline here.
Yes, we are working under a timeline.
And so the public should really be tuned in on some key dates.
With what we've initially requested of KCRHA, they've
actually delivered on their first deliverable,
which was on May 8th.
They submitted a response to address the high-risk findings.
Coming next is a deliverable on the 23rd of May, submitting
their corrective action plan with a timeline on
addressing audit findings.
On June 15th, within our resolution, we're asking
actually the executive to report back on their evaluation
of the May 23rd deliverable.
We're getting into it now.
Yes, we're really getting into the weeds, but I just want
to be clear on this point.
But then that brings us to really August 1st is
when we're asking for that recommendation from the
executive on what is their recommendation on dissolving,
restructuring, or continuing.
And if we're going towards dissolving, we are actually
asking for information on a variety of different
elements in our current homelessness response system.
So the homelessness response system in our
region is very complex.
KCRHA right now holds a lot of responsibilities,
not just to administering Seattle's contracts and
King County's contracts, but also state funding
and also federal funding.
And administering and holding key data systems
that are required by housing and urban development.
Unpacking this.
Unpacking all of that.
And so I offer those things just to say we're taking this
resolution approach to really map out, you know, we want
to be clear on our timelines.
We want to be clear on when we're expecting information
on how they're going to correct or evaluating if they
can correct some of these challenges and also starting
to chart our course forward.
Our course moving forward as it relates to the status
of all of these things.
Especially as we consider any type of restructuring
or dissolution.
And I wanted to make sure I asked a question that
a viewer sent in here.
Mark has a question about the entire approach to homelessness
that our region's taking.
He wrote this.
"San Francisco's new mayor has moved away from the housing
first, low barrier housing When are we going to finally
wake up and do the same?
With summer almost here, we are going to see a wave of drug
addicted, mental health street folks moving here
from San Francisco.
Let's finally fix the problem.
It's not as complex as people think it is.
Just looking at this, the city of San Francisco
has this new model that says it's seeing its lowest level
of unsheltered homelessness in 15 years
with a treatment-first approach, not a housing-first approach.
Is it time to make that change in Seattle?
Mark wants to know.
- Hmm.
I think what's interesting about what Mark's raising--
and thank you for the question, Mark,
because I think it speaks to the general public's frustration
about how we haven't made the progress that we've needed to.
And not every single person experiencing homelessness
also has substance use disorder.
That's often what we see.
It's a very visible part of it.
There's visible homelessness and there's invisible homelessness.
And currently we serve a lot of that invisible homelessness
through so many different systems, our
family shelter system.
There's folks who are much lower acuity who get into a
shelter bed and then really just need support with like
first and last month of rent to get back into housing.
And so and then we have a lot of folks who are sleeping in
their vehicles, folks who just got evicted and, you know,
had something happen in their life, got evicted and are still
working, but living out of their car and just trying to get by.
And so I lift those things up to say we need different
approaches to really meet the needs of different folks.
And in this moment with so much in flux with KCRHA, also with
the federal government, too,
it is clear from the executive orders issued by
the Trump administration, by some of the initial
directives and information we've seen out of HUD,
as they've indicated with continuum of care funding.
They're really pushing for treatment first, too.
They're moving away from treatment first, or
they're moving towards treatment first instead.
So we as a region aren't going to have to grapple
with this question.
I think there is still sufficient evidence that
suggests that housing first and really making sure we can
stabilize and have someone in one place as we start working
on recovery is important.
But as we're really in this delicate moment with our
approach to homelessness, we need to have this
conversation with providers.
I think we should be leading with data.
And evidence still suggests that housing first is one of
the best ways to support folks in their path to recovery.
But we also are in a really challenging moment
with the fentanyl crisis.
And we do not have enough behavioral health
services and supports.
Now, I do want to uplift one other thing because
I think it speaks to how we're trying to do things.
We're trying to pilot and innovate, especially when
it comes to addressing the fentanyl and overdose epidemic.
You know, we had a bunch of our public safety agencies.
So Health One are within Seattle Fire Department
in partnership with Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion.
And other organizations actually provide a event over the
course of a couple of days to offer, pardon me, buprenorphine.
Buprenorphine, yes.
Yes, shot treatments.
Yes, right.
Which last for a number of weeks.
So folks can start at a point.
Get off of the fentanyl.
Yes. With the last number that was shared with me
was about 30 participants from that point as a pop-up
event within Little Saigon.
So when we're talking about being able to start folks
on a pathway to treatment, this is one that we've seen
some good success from.
They held it last year.
They had another one a couple weeks ago.
And, you know, the challenge will be, of course, still
finding those folks and reaching them so we can continue
that pathway to treatment.
but we are trying new things as well.
But I think I'd say holistically in this moment,
we're in a moment of pivot.
We need to make sure that we are being thoughtful
about where we go from here.
Okay, thank you.
I want to talk about the moratorium
on building new detention centers
you sponsored on the council.
That measure recently passed here.
The hope is that it'll be helpful
to Seattle's immigrant communities.
Why'd you sponsor this?
What kind of impact do you think this is going to have?
Yeah, certainly.
Thank you so much.
This has been one of the actions
that we can take as a city to try and address the real
harm and that this federal administration is causing to
our immigrant communities.
And so I'd take us back to actually December of 2025, where
we saw the initial posting on SAM.gov about really new funding
to stand up a new detention center in the Seattle area.
Naturally, that raised a lot of concern.
And to draw a dotted line here, there was about $45
billion approved in the Big Bad Betrayal Bill,
Or Big Beautiful Bill, as some people know.
As some people may see, I think it was a betrayal
to the American people.
But $45 billion allocated specifically to new
detention center capacity.
So expanding capacity or standing up new sites.
And so then we had that action happen.
We see a SAM.gov posting around initial, like a
pre-solicitation notice.
And we took action to say, well, what kind of levers can
we pull on the local level?
Land use and zoning is one of them.
And so by putting forward a one-year moratorium, and
I do want to be clear on this point because I think
there's confusion or curiosity in the community about why
it's not an outright ban.
We put in place a moratorium.
We can do moratoriums of about one year as we develop
permanent regulations.
And because of land use code and requirements
around environmental review, it does take a while.
And we wanted to be able to take a legislative path that allowed
us to move quickly to stop or prevent anything from coming
online and be able to set the stage towards a permanent ban.
And so that is ultimately what we did.
We introduced this as emergency legislation.
So actually required seven votes.
It has a higher threshold when we do emergency legislation.
and we put in place a moratorium for one year.
Council has the ability to extend that moratorium
if we need additional time, and right now our departments
are working to figure out, you know, how do we work
on permanent legislation to address this issue.
I'm interested still in a permanent ban.
I think detention centers do not align with our city's values,
nor do I think we should be assisting
in this federal regime's agenda.
And I say that, too, because of the, I mean, the continuing
headlines we're seeing out of the Northwest Detention Center
of abuses, human rights abuses.
The UW Center for Human Rights covers a lot of
what they're seeing there.
There are we're hearing about things of people not
getting medical attention or basic health care, sexual
violence allegations as well.
And so we we do not want to expand or allow for more of
that to happen in our community.
Okay. Thank you for that.
I want to try to move to what might
be a light topic, light rail, but I'm not sure about this
one. Although, folks, I want you to look at this.
One of Councilmember Rink's many viral
videos on social media here documenting a trip on light rail
across Lake Washington at the end of March where you connected
with your friend Redmond City Councilmember Jessica Forsyth.
A beautiful moment there, of course, but something not so
beautiful. Sound Transit has announced it's not going to
make it to Ballard anytime soon, which voters said yes to with
Sound Transit 3 back in 2016.
I know you're a big transit supporter here.
You're vice chair of the council's transportation
committee, and I know you've rallied with
Ballard Light Rail supporters in the past.
What do you tell them now?
We just had such an amazing moment as a region when we had
the Cross Lake Connection come online.
I mean, we had the second highest day of service
of ridership in the entire system, our history
of Sound Transit on that opening day.
I think it was over 200,000 people rode light rail that day.
And we broke a world record.
We put a train on a floating bridge.
So just a feat of innovation, something we could
all celebrate.
And immediately after that tremendous day for
transit and for connection across our region, really the
news about the future of ST3 and how we fully deliver on
the voter approved measure kind of came in and now folks
are grappling with, are they ever going to get light rail?
I've got about 30 seconds left.
Keep going.
Yeah. Yeah.
So we, I've been active in advocating for
Ballard Light Rail and fully completing the Ballard Link
extension, including getting a date on the calendar.
That is one of my asks of the Sound Transit Board, to get a
date on the calendar for Ballard Link extension, as well as
delivering on Graham Street.
I think there's a real equity problem that's been
put to the forefront that we've continued to defer on
the Graham Street station.
We've upzoned in the neighborhood.
We've planned for growth.
And now we need to be able to move people and really deliver
and make good on that promise.
You know, the south end, southeast Seattle has
sacrificed enough for transit.
And so now is not a moment to be cutting corners and really
backing up with that promise.
And so I'm going to continue being a strong advocate for
completing full Ballard Link extension, which, again,
would have the highest ridership projected numbers.
I believe it's up to 147,000 additional people every day
in that line and continuing.
And we need to deliver on Graham Street Station.
I know there's a lot still ahead with that.
Council Member Rink, thank you very much.
I'm Brian Callinan.
We'll see you next time on City Inside Out Council Edition.
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