Who We Are
Updated July 30, 2025
The City of Seattle is committed to equitable engagement and inclusion with a commitment to create communities of opportunity for everyone, regardless of race or means. To that end, in March 2017, the city established the Seattle Renters' Commission (Ordinance No. 125280) to represent diverse renter voices across the city. Its purpose is to provide information, advice, and counsel to the Mayor, Seattle City Council, and departments concerning issues and policies affecting renters.
Current Members
Andrew Ashiofu
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Adora Blue
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Kasey Burton
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Lydia Felty - Interim Co-Chair
Lydia Felty is a resident of Capitol Hill. Originally from Ohio, she holds a B.A. in American Studies and English and worked as an educator before landing in the nonprofit sector. She now works with small downtowns across the state as they focus on the continued care of their space and community through place stewardship, historic preservation, and small business support.
Liz Fite
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Allan Francis
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Sally Kinney
Sally Kinney grew up in the Salinas Valley of California, an area ethnically and cultural diverse in population but extreme in its economic stratification. In those years before farm worker organizing or work on poverty, she spent years of school alongside children whose Latino farmworker parents lived in field housing with no electricity or plumbing, and children whose families from Oklahoma lived in shacks on the banks of the Salinas River.
After her parents’ divorce, lack of college money meant beginning fulltime work at 17 in Sacramento, and then moving to Seattle at 21 to live with a friend. Memories of childhood in California caused sensitivity to attitudes of communities toward those considered “not as good as.” That was increased when, during several years’ return to California, her first child was diagnosed with autism and she began years of advocating for her daughter with schools and government officials. She co-founded the first national advocacy/research organization for autistic children, and on return to Seattle joined a similar organization here, speaking up for compassionate living environments for those with developmental disabilities.
Sally continued advocacy work for housing and medical care during her years of fulltime work. Because she had sole care of her disabled daughter who needed a dependable home, she borrowed a down payment and bought a small, old house (definitely not a Craftsman!) in Lake City. In the following years, on leaving fulltime work as a paralegal, she worked with many Seattle-area organizations – the Seattle King County Coalition on Homelessness, the Homeless Remembrance Project, the Lake City Taskforce on Homelessness, and Transit Riders Union, among others -- advocating with city, county, and state elected officials to recognize the growing homelessness. She’s made many good friends in that advocacy life.
Once her daughter was accepted into a good Seattle group home, Sally sold her house to support herself in late life and became a renter again. Because she has no retirement income except for SSA, she is watching her savings shrink (her current rent is more than her SSA income) and knows that one of the groups most vulnerable to becoming homeless is elders. That’s borne out by their representation in authorized homeless encampments, including one (Camp United We Stand) of which Sally is on the volunteer board which organizes and oversees the camp. Because of her life experiences, she is glad to be considered for the Seattle Renters Commission. It is one of the organizations that will be especially necessary in the years to come, as Seattle’s renter population increases.
Daniel Lugo
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Angela O'Brien
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Kate Rubin - Interim Co-Chair
Kate Rubin is a renter living in Beacon Hill. She serves as the co-executive director at Be:Seattle, a grassroots non-profit organization focused on housing justice. Kate has played an instrumental role in advancing various renter protections in Seattle. She works to empower renters to advocate for their communities and organize for landlord accountability and stronger protections. She believes people most affected by policies and decisions should have real power in shaping them, and that everyone has the right to a safe, stable, and comfortable home.
Julissa Sanchez
Julissa Sánchez (she/her/ella) is a fierce Xicana Sinaloense, originally from Los Angeles, who grew up along the West Coast. She serves as an activist, liaison, and community organizer centering transformative justice. She is a dedicated advocate for youth, cultural education, anti-displacement housing rights, anti-racist work, and language justice. Her passion for culture, decolonization, intergenerational healing, and justice led her to study Latin American Studies, with a minor in Human Rights at the University of Washington.
Julissa has dedicated her career to empowering historically underserved communities by advocating for progressive policy reforms and redistribution of resources. Working in solidarity for collective liberation through policy reform, cultural education, and transformative justice.
Julissa worked in housing justice for five years at the Tenants Union of Washington State, where she developed the Language Justice Program to ensure the Latine community was informed of their tenants' rights in their own language. She tenaciously worked and advocated to make sure Latine tenants stayed housed, empowering them to fight against unlawful evictions, especially during the COVID pandemic. Julissa was also an essential organizer working in collaboration with the community for the Just Cause Eviction Protection bill and tenants’ rights package in the city of Burien and the State of Washington.
Currently, Julissa is dedicated to dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline as the Director of Advocacy at CHOOSE180, through policy reform, transformative justice, youth empowerment culture, and intergenerational healing. She is focused on creating programs that are youth-led, where youth voices are centered and amplified. Because housing justice is youth justice, Julissa continues to work in tenant rights as a Commissioner for the Seattle Renters’ Commission.
Julissa is a published author, contributing to "Women Who Lead the Future of Entrepreneurship," a collaboration of women leaders from around the world, where she highlights her work in housing and language justice. She is currently writing her first novel based on the true story of her miraculous life. Julissa is passionate about writing as a form of self-expression and believes in the power of owning one’s narratives. Her writing focuses on lived experience, aiming to inspire women to own their stories, power, and live their truths.
When she is not working in the community or on her writing, she is dedicated to mothering the revolution and intergenerational healing, as the mother of a 16-year-old son.
E. Mandisa Subira
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Karen Taylor
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Samuel Wolfson
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