Stephanie Smith

Vancouver is Stephanie Smith's city. She was born at St. Paul's Hospital, grew up around her family's small business on Granville Street, and came of age in East Vancouver. Over her life, she’s seen Vancouver become a harder place for everyday people to survive in. She’s running because it doesn’t have to be that way.

For almost thirty years, Stephanie has done the hard, unglamorous work of keeping people in their homes. As a legal advocate, she has helped thousands of tenants facing renovictions, demovictions, and landlords who count on people not knowing their rights. She has trained advocates and law students, organized community legal clinics, represented workers, bargained collective agreements, and worked with city and provincial partners to shape law and policy for the public good.

She has served with the BC Poverty Reduction Coalition, the Vancouver and District Labour Council, and REACH Community Health Centre. Since 2022, as a director of the Co-operative Housing Federation of BC and the Community Land Trust, she has helped build genuinely affordable, community-owned housing across the province.

For Stephanie, this isn't just theoretical: as the president of her own housing co-op, she sees every day what housing stability makes possible in people's lives.

In 2022, her friend Pete Fry asked her to bring her experience into the political arena and run as a City Council candidate with the Vancouver Greens. She’s returning with a clear purpose: to make Vancouver a city where everyday people can afford to stay. Stephanie Smith has spent her career solving that problem one person at a time. At City Hall, she'll work to solve it for everyone.