On January 6, 2026, Dionne Foster took the oath of office to become the City of Seattle’s newest at-large Councilmember, replacing former Council President Sara Nelson. As chair of the Housing, Arts, and Civil Rights Committee, Foster brings a policy background rooted in grassroots organizing and lived experience of financial hardship.
Councilmember Foster’s first time in the Council Chambers goes back over a decade to 2014, when she worked at Got Green, a South Seattle nonprofit focused on building community power around environmental justice. Back then, she was part of the successful effort to pass Priority Hire legislation, which requires the City to hire a quarter of its construction workers from economically distressed zip codes for City public works projects over $5 million dollars as well as for public-private partnerships that have significant City investment.
“It was the place of bridging the community to city hall,” Foster reflected. “I got to be in chambers for some of the committee hearings. I think it was my first time in chambers.” She laughed, remembering a photo of herself with a clipboard and green shirt, standing against the back wall. “I was like, oh, that’s cool, I work here now.”
Watching organizers turn construction workers’ exclusion from city contracts into policy change shaped her understanding of what government could and should do.
“You’re trying to create material benefits for people. You’re trying to make people’s lives better,” Foster explained. “That’s the whole point.”
Foster’s journey has been multicultural; she was born on a military base in Germany and raised in southern Virginia. She paid household bills as a teenager and started her first job at a fast food restaurant the day she turned 16. Her mother, a single parent and full-time educator, raised Foster and her older brother in challenging circumstances. Money was tight and Foster remembers the electricity being cut off and taking showers at her uncle’s house.
These experiences of hardship continued through Foster’s early years living in Seattle. “This is the city where I had my son, and it is the city where we spent hours in WIC and DSHS offices trying to get the financial support we needed to make ends meet when he was a baby,” she recalled during her swearing-in speech.
These personal experiences now inform Foster’s vision for representing Seattle’s diverse neighborhoods, including the Chinatown International District (CID). “My vision for the neighborhood is to make sure that it remains a thriving place. We’re seeing too much displacement and gentrification and change, and I want to be a part of making sure the CID remains diverse. I want to make sure that those communities are all supported and thriving— that feels really important to me.”
She emphasizes being proactive rather than merely responsive to neighborhood constituencies, having already made early outreach calls during her campaign to several local community-based organizations.
“We have real, as we all know, human services and safety challenges that we need to address. And also the CID is more than that,” Foster said. “Part of my responsibility as an elected official is to be responsive to the challenges, but also to help support the things that help the community flourish and thrive and be grounded. Part of this is not defining the neighborhood only by its challenges, despite the fact that they’re real and significant.”
Foster’s approach centers on supporting community-owned housing through partnerships with organizations like the Seattle Chinatown International District Preservation and Development Authority, ensuring longtime building owners can address their challenges, and protecting cultural institutions.
On homelessness and public safety, Foster takes a systems-level approach grounded in a fundamental belief: “I believe that homelessness is a housing problem,” she said. She supports Mayor Katie Wilson’s executive order rapidly expanding shelter capacity and affordable housing development, and wants to expedite shelter creation through faster permitting and strategic use of city-owned land.
“If we are saying we want to make sure that we’re bringing people inside, then we have to expand our shelter capacity,” Foster said.
As chair of the Housing, Arts, and Civil Rights Committee, Foster sees an opportunity to build bridges between these three issue areas. Civil rights enforcement ties directly to housing through anti-discrimination ordinances and housing code oversight. Arts, she argues, matters both for placemaking and because “artists are working people who are trying to afford to stay in the city.”
“We have a really rich arts history here in Seattle,” Foster said, citing everyone from Sir Mix-a-Lot to Jacob Lawrence to grunge music. She’s excited about using Office of Arts and Culture resources to support artists while benefiting neighborhoods— like murals that beautify spaces while deterring graffiti.
Joining a progressive council bloc with Alexis Mercedes Rinck and Eddie Lin, Foster’s priorities include revenue reform to make Seattle’s tax system less regressive, implementing the comprehensive plan to increase housing supply, and renewing the Seattle Transit Measure to ensure reliable bus service on high-ridership routes like Route 7, which connects South Seattle to downtown.
She’s also committed to expanding the Community Assisted Response and Engagement (CARE) department. “We owe it to people to make sure that when they need help, the right person is showing up and that the right person is showing up in enough time to get them the help that they need,” Foster said.
For Foster, being progressive means specific policy commitments: ensuring people pay their fair share through tax reform, advancing police accountability and reform, and applying a racial equity lens to all city work.
“When we think about our investments in policing and public safety, the public should be able to have accountability when an officer acts outside of the standards of the law,” she explained. She noted that a progressive lens means understanding “we’re not there yet, and that there’s a lot more space to go” on issues from disproportionate homelessness among Indigenous and Black people to serving those most harmed by violence.
Now living in Rainier Beach, Foster brings urgency to a council facing critical challenges around housing, homelessness, and equity. Her approach combines systemic thinking with neighborhood-level responsiveness, centered on tangible improvements to people’s daily lives.
Evelyn is a writer and community organizer based on Coast Salish lands. Evelyn has 8 years of experience in government and currently works for King County. In their free time, Evelyn can be found singing karaoke and watching anime.
