Former city councillor and longtime political activist Jim Green died February 28 after losing his battle with lung cancer.
The 68-year-old worked for various social causes until the end and never seriously considered retirement.
“I can’t get an image of myself on a cruise or sitting around,” he told Business in Vancouver in 2001 when he was asked if he would ever retire. “I’ll be doing work that I want to do later in life rather than me putting aside lots of money for retirement.”
His life’s work was to help create:
•social housing;
•a safe environment for injection-drug use; and
•support for marginalized people predominantly in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.
Green co-founded the Portland Hotel Society, which operates the Insite safe injection site.
Green worked in 2009 as a consultant at Millennium Developments Ltd. on matters related to the Olympic Village.
However, the real estate project with social housing that he is most closely associated with is the redevelopment of the former Woodward’s department store.
Green was a city councillor in 2003 when the City of Vancouver, at his urging, bought the Woodward’s site for $5 million.
The city then selected Westbank Projects and Peterson Investment Group to develop the $400 million project, which included 536 market housing units and 125 non-market housing units to be operated by the Affordable Housing Society. It also featured retail space, a daycare and Simon Fraser University’s 130,000-square-foot School for Contemporary Arts.
Green was elected as a city councillor under the Coalition of Progressive Electors banner in 2002, but by 2005, along with Mayor Larry Campbell and councillors Tim Stephenson and Raymond Louie, Green helped create a new socially progressive party: Vision Vancouver.
Green ran for mayor twice and he lost both – in 1990 against Gordon Campbell and in 2005 against Sam Sullivan.
Green worked closely with former Premier Glen Clark to create the Crown corporation Four Corners Bank in the Downtown Eastside in the late 1990s.
Green became CEO of the bank, which was set up to help people who did not have enough money to open an account at a regular bank.
But Four Corners wound up losing millions of dollars and was shut down by the provincial government after Gordon Campbell’s Liberals were elected in 2001.
Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Green came to Vancouver in 1968 to avoid being drafted to fight in Vietnam.
Condolences came from across the political spectrum after word of his death spread.
“It is with great sorrow that we mark the passing of Jim Green – visionary, politician, activist and developer,” Premier Christy Clark said in a release.
“Jim’s contributions to Vancouver will be his lasting legacy, most notably his efforts to transform the former Woodward’s building in the Downtown Eastside into the vibrant gathering place it is today. The historic former department store is now an outstanding example of how a development can enhance an existing community, rather than displace it.” •
