| Jean Swanson | |
| Office: | Vancouver City Councillor |
| Term Start: | November 5, 2018[1] |
| Term End: | November 7, 2022 |
| Nationality: | Canadian |
| Party: | COPE |
| Residence: | Vancouver, British Columbia |
| Awards: | Order of Canada |
Jean Swanson (born)[2] is a Canadian politician, anti-poverty activist, and writer in Vancouver, British Columbia. She represented the left-wing Coalition of Progressive Electors on Vancouver City Council as one of Vancouver's 10 at-large city councillors from 2018 to 2022.
In the 1980s, Swanson worked with the BC Solidarity Coalition, as well as Vancouver's Downtown Eastside Residents Association (DERA).
Swanson is a coordinator of Carnegie Community Action Project (CCAP), an organization dedicated to the welfare of the Downtown Eastside, one of Canada's poorest neighbourhoods.[3] [4] Swanson also founded and works with the group End Legislated Poverty, a British Columbia coalition with stated aims to "educate and organize in order to make governments reduce and end poverty".[5] [6] She was national chair of the National Anti-Poverty Organization (NAPO).[7] She authored Poor Bashing: The Politics of Exclusion.
During Swanson's time on Vancouver City Council, she consistently voted for social housing while opposing market-rate housing developments.[8]
In 2017, during her campaign for Vancouver City Council, she called for a rent freeze.[9] She said that she would not support the construction of market-rate housing, as she believed it would cause gentrification and increase rents.[10] In 2019, she voted against allowing a 5-storey apartment building (where one-fifth of the units were below market rates) in Kitsilano, a 35-storey building in Woodland, and 79 rental units in the Hastings-Sunrise neighbourhood, arguing they would gentrify the neighbourhood and displace residents.[11] [12] [13] That year, she also voted against allowing the conversion of a single-family lot into 21 townhomes, arguing that the rents would be too high and that only the landlord would benefit.[14]
In 2022, she voted against a 39-storey building (with one-fifth of the units set aside for below market rate rents), arguing that the building would lead to increases in rents in nearby buildings.[15]
In 2021, she voted in favour of allowing 12-storey apartment buildings of social housing without a rezoning application.[16]
In 2022, she voted against a major rezoning plan for the Broadway corridor that permitted 40-storey mixed-use developments near SkyTrain stations, as well as the replacement of older, small 10-unit buildings with 15- to 20-storey buildings. She argued that this was not the "housing we need for the working class".[17] During the debates on rezoning, she asked "If people are driving into Vancouver for jobs, wouldn't it be better to increase the jobs elsewhere outside of Vancouver so people don't have to drive so far?"[18]
In 2016, she was inducted into the Order of Canada, Canada's highest civilian honour, with the grade of member.[19] Swanson was also the recipient of the 2007 Carleton University Kroeger College Award for Citizenship and Community Affairs, an award recognizing "creativity, persistence, and overall leadership in demonstrating the value of a locally based initiative."[6] Swanson was chosen for the award "for her tireless work against poverty in Canada. (She) is a private individual living in Vancouver who the jury concluded best represented the qualities of commitment, leadership, and community ties."[6]
In 2021, she was the subject of Teresa Alfield's short documentary film Jean Swanson: We Need a New Map.[20]