I’m Stephanie Allen. I’m running to be Mayor of Vancouver with COPE.

This is a moment that requires political courage. 

In the 1970s, the city demolished Hogan’s Alley, Vancouver’s black neighbourhood, to put in a freeway connection. That’s never been made right. I co-founded the Hogan’s Alley society to try to right that wrong through the creation of a community land trust.

What happened to Hogan’s Alley is not ancient history. The same thing that was done to Hogan’s Alley is happening now across our city with every SRO converted, every renter displaced, and every co-op that has to fight for its right to continue to exist.

This same pattern keeps happening because our governments are prioritizing predatory capital and the super-rich ahead of everyone else.

Vancouver doesn’t have to be this way.

When I worked at BC Housing as Vice-President, I saw first hand how governments are starving non-profits of the funding they need to produce and maintain affordable housing for people. When I was there, I worked to centre the voices of those most impacted - to bring tenants to the table, to treat people who are homeless with dignity and get them housed, and to serve the public benefit.

These systems are good at creating photo ops and press releases, but they’re bad at meeting the needs of our communities. The people running these non-profits either need to numb themselves to the violence of our housing system, or, like me and many others, move on.

I want to bring my experience in housing and governance to fight for the Vancouver we love. I’m inspired by what COPE is doing, what Sean Orr has been doing, to fight for people with courage and without compromise.

We need to dream bigger. We need to fight harder. We can win what people really need and do it with integrity.

I’m ready for this work. But this isn’t about me. It’s about a movement of people fighting back against a rigged system that works for private equity, predatory wealth, and the ultra-rich, and leaves the rest of us struggling to get by.

Too many politicians feign helplessness and throw up their hands, or worse pass the buck and blame the powerless. They want us divided and conquered. We have tools we can use to fix the problems facing Vancouver. We will fight every day to correct the imbalance, make deals that benefit our city, and win what we need so that we can all live better and build a life here.

Ken Sim is a bad mayor. He’s selling us out. He’s driving the city into the ground. But Ken Sim is a symptom. He’s the product of a political and economic system that will make bad mayor after bad mayor on repeat. There is no doubt that we need to get Ken Sim out of office, but he’ll be replaced by a new bad mayor unless we stand up for the city we love and do something different.

Together we can fight the rigged system and create something better for all of us.

We have to fight for housing. The housing market can’t make rents affordable. It’s a systemic issue. Private investors and equity need a return on investment that drives your rents up. When rents go down, the developers lay off their staff and wait. They can afford to wait, but we can’t. We are trapped in a race to the bottom, selling out hard-won affordability requirements, environmental requirements, and community benefits, trying to entice developers to build. Developers have a responsibility to the communities they build in. We need City Hall to fight for community land trusts, co-ops, affordable and non-market housing. We need to take big swings on homelessness, and to protect renters. We can grow our city with human thriving – not profit - at the heart of what we do.

We have to fight for tenants. Despite being over half of Vancouver’s population, City Hall has time after time left renters behind. We need to strengthen Vancouver’s tenant protections, including against displacement, and make sure that every renter is secure, city-wide. We have to close the loopholes that put profits over people, private equity over community. 

We have to listen to the people, fight for them, and stay accountable.

It's what we mean when we say “Power to the People.” 

Around the world, and here in Vancouver, billionaires like Chip Wilson are buying politicians and elections to make the system work for them instead of us. We’re seeing democratic backsliding, and too many people’s voices are being ignored. Consultations, engagements, and even referendums are thrown in the garbage. How are people supposed to feel when a record-setting 600+ people speak out against Ken Sim’s austerity budget, and ABC pushes it through anyways? How are we supposed to feel when Ken Sim promises to keep the elected park board, then tries to axe it after he wins a majority?  How are we supposed to feel when time after time, we’re shown that our voice doesn’t matter?

That has to change.

We have to take care of each other, and fight for Vancouver’s soul. We can’t let people struggle on the margins in the street below empty luxury condos. We can’t crush local shops and restaurants to make way for chains and  big-box stores. We need to support our arts, culture, and nightlife community, not starve them for funding and crack down on the creators who make it happen. We need to fund our libraries, community centres, and pools, not make them lay off staff or fall apart from neglect. 

When I’m the next Mayor of Vancouver, I’m going to stay focused on making it affordable to build a life here, and bringing authentic accountability and transparency to city hall. 

It’s going to take courage. What we need right now is an unapologetic movement that calls out the political and economic system and has the expertise to turn our values into tangible results, solving problems instead of gaslighting us all with the lie that nothing can be done.

It’s not going to be easy. We’re up against deep-pocketed donors, big industry, and the power of private equity and predatory wealth. But we can do it with your help, and with love for our city and the people who live here at the centre of what we do.

Living in Vancouver means something to us. We have to fight for it. It’s worth fighting for.