Leadership grounded in lived experience
My name is Scarlett Jelena Gillespie, also known as Jelena Vermilion. I am a 33 year-old Hamilton community leader, researcher, writer, artist, healthcare worker, organizer, and advocate.
I am running for Mayor of Hamilton because I believe our city needs leadership that understands how municipal decisions affect people in their everyday lives.
For too long, many residents have felt that City Hall listens most closely to those with the greatest wealth, influence, and access. Meanwhile, working-class people, disabled residents, tenants, seniors, newcomers, marginalized workers, and people living in public housing are too often expected to accept less.
I am running to change that.
My leadership is rooted in direct service, community-engaged research, organizational management, and lived experience. I know what it is like to navigate systems that are difficult to access, slow to respond, and sometimes hostile toward the very people they are supposed to serve.
I also know that those systems can be changed when residents are treated as experts in their own lives.
A record of community leadership
Since 2018, I have served as the founder and Executive Director of the Sex Workers’ Action Program Hamilton, commonly known as SWAP Hamilton.
In that role, I have helped build an organization dedicated to health, safety, human rights, harm reduction, access to justice, and community support. I have overseen programs, developed partnerships, managed organizational operations, supported staff and volunteers, written grants, secured funding, and represented community concerns in the media and before public institutions.
Under my leadership, SWAP Hamilton has built relationships with labour unions, universities, community foundations, healthcare providers, legal advocates, social-service organizations, artists, researchers, and different levels of government. The organization has raised more than $250,000 through grants, partnerships, private donations, and community labour.
This work has taught me how to turn ideas into programs, manage limited resources responsibly, build coalitions among people with different perspectives, and remain accountable to the communities and organization it is intended to serve.
These are not abstract leadership skills. They are the practical skills required to run a city.
Experience across healthcare, research, and public policy
My professional and educational background crosses several fields because the challenges facing Hamilton residents do not fit neatly within one department.
I am currently a graduate student in the Community-Engaged Research and Evaluation diploma program. I have previous education as a personal support worker and in nursing with specializations in geriatric care, palliative care, dementia care, family-violence education, harm reduction, and inclusive healthcare practices.
As a personal support worker, I assisted people with their daily needs while providing emotional support and assistance to those with neurocognitive impairment while collaborating with healthcare teams. That work reinforced something I have always believed: dignity is not an optional service. It must be at the centre of healthcare, housing, transportation, accessibility, and municipal policy.
As a researcher and community partner, I have contributed to projects concerning homelessness, healthcare access, policing, public safety, social exclusion, gender-based violence, and the experiences of trans, non-binary, and sex-working communities.
I have collaborated with McMaster University, Mohawk College, George Brown College, the Canadian Association of Schools of Nursing, Trans PULSE Canada, Good Shepherd Hamilton, Hamilton Public Library, and other public and community institutions.
My research has appeared in academic publications, institutional repositories, books, reports, zines, and public commentary. I have presented at universities, conferences, community forums, and public-policy events across Canada.
My research and archival work has received significant financial support and recognition, including:
W. A. Percy Foundation for Social and Historical Studies – $20,000: Supporting independent research into the history of sex-work regulation and policing.
McMaster University Societal Impact Seed Grant – $20,000: Supporting ethical and community-driven research developed in collaboration with Dr. Andrea Zeffiro.
Madness Canada Hewton and Griffin Archival Research Award – $5,000: Supporting archival research and the preservation of histories often excluded from conventional institutions.
The ArQuives Alan Miller Research Fellowship – $2,000: Supporting research within Canada’s 2SLGBTQ+ archival record.
Research matters to me because good government must be based on evidence. Community knowledge matters because evidence without lived experience can reproduce the same failures it is supposed to solve. Hamilton needs both.
My expertise has also been recognized in the legal system. In 2018, I was hired as an expert witness for Legal Aid Ontario. I provided testimony, helping the court understand industry practices through direct experience and specialized community knowledge. This work reflects my ability to translate complex, often misunderstood realities into clear evidence that can inform legal and public-policy decisions.
As mayor, I would bring the same evidence-based and community-accountable approach to City Hall. Municipal decisions should be informed by reliable data, transparent evaluation, historical understanding, and the direct experiences of Hamilton residents.
Advocacy at City Hall with results
I have repeatedly appeared before City of Hamilton committees and public bodies, including the CityHousing Hamilton Board of Directors, the Emergency and Community Services Committee, the Hamilton Police Services Board, the Governance Review Sub-Committee, the Committee of Adjustment, and the LGBTQ Advisory Committee.
I understand how intimidating municipal processes can be for residents. Delegation rules, reports, closed-door discussions, technical language, and administrative delays can make people feel excluded from decisions that directly affect their homes and communities.
My advocacy has produced concrete results at City Hall. I helped support YWCA Hamilton in securing $100,000 in municipal funding for its city-wide Gender-Based Safety Audit, ensuring that the experiences of women, girls, gender-diverse people, and marginalized communities informed public-safety planning.
In 2024, my Code of Conduct complaint and subsequent delegation also helped expose gaps in the rules governing councillors’ public and social-media communications. Council later adopted By-law 24-170, adding Section 14: Standards Relating to Communication, which requires councillors to communicate honestly, focus on issues rather than personalities, and avoid threatening, intimidating, offensive, or abusive conduct.
Residents should not need professional connections or insider knowledge to be heard at City Hall.
As mayor, I would work to make municipal decision-making more transparent, understandable, and accessible. Public consultation must be meaningful. Community engagement cannot simply be a box checked after the important decisions have already been made.
Protecting Hamilton’s history and telling the truth
I am also an archivist, artist, curator, and writer.
Since 2020, I have worked with the Hamilton Public Library’s Local History and Archives on the Jelena Vermilion Collection. My archival, research, and artistic work preserves histories that are frequently ignored, erased, or misunderstood. I mentor graduate students using the collection to produce more evidence.
I have written about Hamilton’s grassroots organizers, marginalized communities, labour, violence, institutional power, and the people whose contributions were overlooked during their lives.
A city that does not understand its history is likely to repeat its mistakes.
Hamilton’s future must be built honestly. That means acknowledging who has been excluded, recognizing who has carried this city through difficult times, and ensuring that redevelopment does not erase the communities that made our neighbourhoods what they are.
Recognized leadership
My community work has received local, national, and international recognition.
In 2024, I received the YWCA Hamilton Women of Distinction Award and the International José Julio Sarria Civil Rights Award. I have also been nominated for an honorary Doctor of Laws degree at McMaster University, the Order of Hamilton, the Hamilton 40 Under Forty Business Achievement Awards, Canada’s Volunteer Awards, the Ontario Federation of Labour’s Pride and Solidarity Champion Award, the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s Daniel G. Hill Human Rights Award, and the Law Society of Ontario’s Human Rights Award.
I value these honours because they recognize years of community work. But leadership is not about collecting awards. It is about what happens after the cameras leave, after the meeting ends, and after a promise has been made.
Leadership means following through.
Why I am running
I am running for Mayor of Hamilton because I believe our city can be more accountable, more compassionate, and more ambitious.
As a CityHousing Hamilton resident, I understand the consequences of neglected infrastructure and unresponsive systems. I know what it means to raise concerns about housing conditions and feel that the institution responsible is not listening.
Hamilton must build more deeply affordable housing while repairing and properly maintaining the public housing it already owns. Tenants deserve safe homes. Disabled residents deserve accessible services. Workers deserve respect. Seniors deserve security. Small businesses deserve fair opportunities. Neighbourhoods deserve investment without displacement.
Public safety must mean more than enforcement. It must include stable housing, accessible healthcare, mental-health support, harm reduction, safe streets, reliable transit, well-maintained public spaces, and institutions residents can trust.
I am not running because I believe one person can solve every problem alone.
I am running because I know how to bring people together, ask difficult questions, challenge institutional complacency, and build solutions with the communities most affected.
A mayor who will listen
Hamilton is filled with intelligence, creativity, resilience, and generosity. Our greatest resource is not a new development or political announcement. It is the people who live here.
I want residents to know that their experiences matter before they become a crisis, a lawsuit, a news story, or an election issue.
I am running to be a mayor who listens, tells the truth, acts with integrity, and remains accountable to the public.
Hamilton deserves leadership that understands struggle, respects evidence, and recognizes the dignity of every resident.
That is the leadership I am prepared to bring to City Hall.