Stephanie Allen leading Vancouver Hogan's Alley revival
March 14, 2022
Eight years ago, Canada Post issued a stamp honouring Hogan’s Alley and Nora Hendrix -- the grandmother of American rock guitarist/singer Jimi Hendrix -- who co-founded Vancouver’s first Black church in 1918.
The church along with her workplace, Vie’s Chicken & Steak House, were integral parts of the centre of the city’s Black community in the Stratchona neighbourhood that was displaced five decades ago by industry and the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts.
Many Black employees at the Great Northern Railway Station completed in 1916 also resided in the thriving Hogan’s Alley.
While pursuing a Master’s in Urban Studies at Simon Fraser University, Stephanie Allen learnt about the historic neighbourhood that was home to multiple immigrant communities.
“I had taken an Urban Inequality class which had concepts that I would not have encountered during my undergraduate studies,” she said. “My mom was an activist and I have always been very committed to social justice, so I started to understand that there was an aspect to the area that I worked in that had a social justice need. As I started to learn about the development of cities, the development of urban spaces and how much inequality was baked in to urban development in this part of the world, it was really eye opening. You walk through neighbourhoods and urban areas and you think people decided to put these buildings here. But the system that influences everything else also influences this aspect of how we live. After my teacher told me about this Black community here in British Columbia that I had never heard of that was destroyed through urban renewal, I started do some research.”
While doing a term paper, Allen found that the City of Vancouver was planning a large-scale redevelopment of the area.
“At the time, the city made zero mention of the Black community that used to be there and there were no plans to recognize that lost history and the people that were impacted,” the youngest of three siblings noted. “As soon as I found that out, I said that is not right and something needs to be done. Myself and a few community members who were keeping the memory of this neighbourhood alive for so long petitioned the city, saying you have an opportunity to make right the past wrongs.”
The housing development specialist co-founded the non-profit Hogan’s Alley Society that is in the process of developing partnerships with local government and business interests to acquire and develop land and operate assets as a community land trust.
Hogan’s Alley Society has collaborated with British Columbia (BC) Housing and the Portland Hotel Society to establish a temporary modular housing development named after Nora Hendrix who will become the first Black woman in Vancouver to have a street bearing her name. Nora Hendrix Way will be part of the new St. Paul’s Hospital precinct expected to be completed in 2026.
The City of Vancouver has also signaled an interest to support the Black community’s efforts to construct a cultural centre in the downtown core along False Creek.
“Our idea for a form of shared equity ownership is grounded in the spirit of Black communities in the United States who have turned to community land trust as a way of holding land inter-generationally and having an idea of shared stewardship,” pointed out Allen whose graduate thesis, ‘Fighting the Power: Redressing displacement and building a just city for Black Lives in Vancouver’, was recognized with a 2020-21 Western Association of Graduate Schools and ProQuest Distinguished Master’s Thesis Award in Humanities, Social Sciences, Education & Business Disciplines.
From her mother and extended family members, Allen gained an interest in activism and social justice issues.
Coming to Canada from Guyana in 1962 through the West Indian Domestic Scheme, Lynette Joseph-Bani spent her early years in Montreal and put herself through school studying clothing design.
Stephanie Allen and her mother Lynette Joseph Bani (Photo submitted)
“I come from a strong Black woman that worked very hard in this country,” said Allen. “I saw what it did to her and the barriers she had to overcome. Everytime she was knocked down, she brushed herself off and got back up on her feet. I was also raised in a tight family setting that fostered the love of my Blackness and my desire to not see any of us get knocked down. Every Black person in this country deserves to live a life free of racism. It’s the minimum that this country can do for us and yet here were are continuing to fight for it.”
Most of her professional career has revolved around housing and real estate development.
Seeking a job after competing her Business Administration degree 20 years ago at Okanagan College in Kelowna, a professor linked her with a developer who was seeking a development manager.
Allen spent nearly three-and-a-half years with the family-owned Bruckal Group that collaborates with strategic partners to buy real estate assets in Canada and the United States.
“I learnt everything from my first boss (Myles Bruckal),” she said. “He was incredible. Sometimes people show up in your life and put you on a path.”
Allen clearly remembers her first meeting with an architect.
“We were looking at plans for a building and I had no idea what I was looking at and what to do,” she recounted. “When we went back to the office, Myles asked what I thought of the meeting and I said, ‘I don’t know and what do you think?’ He leaned over and said ‘Stephanie, I didn’t hire you to ask me what I think’. That interaction was the trigger for me to explore this world. I thought it was a job for a brief time, but I fell in love with housing construction and development. It is like putting a puzzle together. I fell in love with that whole realm of project management and taking an idea and turning it into spaces that human beings will use.”
During her tenure with Bruckal that included working in the then hot Arizona property market, Allen designed a marketing and sales strategy that enhanced the overall rent-up rate by 150 per cent and, in her third year, directed the only development that met the company’s financial targets.
After six years with BC Housing as a Senior Project Officer based in Burnaby, she spent two years with a non-profit real estate developer before rejoining the provincial crown agency in 2019.
Allen was recently promoted to Vice-President of Strategic Business Operations & Performance.
Stephanie Allen (Photo by Tanya Goehring Photography)
Her responsibilities include research; program planning; security & emergency services; equity, diversity, inclusion & belonging and oversight of the agency’s homeless file and reconciliation strategy.
“In British Columbia, there is an absolute requirement for us to improve our relations with the Indigenous People on the land we work,” said Ontario-born Allen who moved to Calgary in her teenage years and relocated to British Columbia at age 20. “Most of the land don’t have treaties and their land is unceded. That work is very focused on building the reconciliation capacity for BC Housing to deliver and work with Indigenous communities and support their self-determination.”
An animal lover, becoming a veterinarian was at the top of her list of career choices.
“My heart was in that field, but I was a bit squeamish when it came to Biology,” said Allen who was recognized with a Breaking Barriers Award at the 2021 BC Multicultural and Anti-Racism Award virtual ceremony to mark International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. “One day, I might have a farm with a few chickens and goats. Surrounded by nature could be exciting.”
