Candidate for
Mayor; City of San Francisco

A Life Dedicated to Service

Quintin Mecke is currently the Program Director for the Safety Network Partnership, a citywide public safety program promoting community-driven responses to crime and violence in San Francisco's neighborhoods.

A progressive Democrat, Quintin is dedicated to creating positive social change through action and is committed to seeing San Francisco remain a compassionate, progressive, and equitable place to live.

After college, he joined the U.S. Peace Corps to be an agro-forestry volunteer in Niger, West Africa working to combat the growing deforestation and erosion from the Sahara desert. After recovering from a near fatal mountain climbing accident in Alaska, he moved to San Francisco in 1997 to begin life on the West Coast.

Quintin is deeply involved in the real issues facing San Francisco neighborhoods and has a broad range of experience in both public policy and community-based work.

He is also a member of the Shelter Monitoring Committee, which is charged with inspecting the city's homeless shelters to ensure that individuals and families experiencing homelessness are treated with dignity and respect.

As a member of the Elections Task Force on Redistricting, Quintin helped redraw the city's supervisor districts. In 2001, he was selected to serve on San Francisco's Civil Grand Jury and authored their report on homelessness. He was the President of the Mental Health Association of San Francisco for several years and currently serves on the Board of Directors for the arts organization CounterPULSE.

Preparing for Leadership

Quintin Mecke was born in Fort Washington, PA in 1972. He graduated from Dickinson College where he studied Religion. Quintin received his Master's in Public Administration from San Francisco State University in 2006.

Quintin is a former community fellow with the Coro Foundation. He is also a graduate of Leadership San Francisco, a program of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce.

Supporting Progressive Political Causes

As a Democrat, Quintin's first political work in the city was working for Supervisor Tom Ammiano's 1998 re-election campaign, the last citywide elections before the return of district elections. After spending most of 1999 in India doing volunteer work, Quintin returned to San Francisco in early 2000 and volunteered in Tom Ammiano's office, learning the numerous issues facing the city and being mentored on what honest, community-focused politics were all about.

Later that year, as a community organizer in the South of Market, Quintin helped organize the South of Market Anti-Displacement Coalition (SOMAD) to try and address the displacement of neighborhood businesses, nonprofits and community groups that was occurring during the heated land use speculation during the dot.com boom. During that time, Quintin was introduced to Matt Gonzalez and worked on his successful campaign for Supervisor in 2000.

These efforts inspired Quintin into a wide range of civic and policy work. In 2001, Quintin was named to the Civil Grand Jury and authored their report on the city's homeless policy. In 2002, he was nominated by Supervisor Matt Gonzalez for the Elections Task Force on Redistricting, charged with redrawing the city's supervisorial lines after the 2000 census.

Through his work on the Grand Jury, Quintin became more interested in trying to use his skills to address homelessness and he left community organizing to enter the mental health field working to find employment for adults with mental illness. Driven to action by the homeless individuals he served, Quintin worked again with Supervisor Ammiano on his 2002 ballot measure, Exits from Homelessness, and debated then Supervisor Gavin Newsom on Care not Cash.

In 2003, Quintin worked on Matt Gonzalez' historic run for Mayor which energized the city while also beginning his MPA studies at SFSU that fall. The following year, he began to focus more on policy and worked for the San Francisco Human Services Network as the Director of Policy and Communication and also served as the President of the Mental Health Association of San Francisco. As a longtime resident of District 5, he helped work on Ross Mirkarimi's successful campaign for Supervisor after Matt Gonzalez returned to the private sector.