Ever since high school, Jennifer Allen has been trying to create change.

A fourth-generation Southern Arizonian, she recalls her start as a teenage student-activist who got involved with campus issues during college. After graduation, she went on to spend 30 years working with social justice and environmental nonprofits.

Most recently, she served as executive director of ACLU of Arizona, where she advocated for  abortion rights, LGBTQ issues and climate change. 

Now, Allen is running as a Democrat for the District 3 Pima County Supervisor position, facing Republican Janet Wittenbraker and Independent Iman-Utopia Layjou Bah in November’s election. 

Allen says her experience and connection to communities set her apart from her opponents.

She’s the first person in her family to graduate from college with a four-year degree and her husband works for the City of Tucson. Her parents live here and she comes from a long line of union members. All of this informs who she is and how she sees the world, she said. 

“I spent my career sitting on the other side of the table from elected officials,” she said. “Which is where District Three constituents and communities are, so I have been in their seat of trying to get elected officials to be responsive and trust the knowledge, experience, and leadership of people who live the experience of problems in their neighborhood and community.”

Allen said that, while needs differ across District 3, one of the most pervasive issues within the community is climate change. 

“There’s a lot of anxiety, uncertainty, fear about the impacts of a rapidly changing climate in extreme heat,” she said. “Our communities, our health, our safety, our economic future.”

Another problem she sees is the lack of affordable housing in Pima County as a whole, saying everybody deserves a home.

“I want to tackle affordable housing and ensure that the county is showing up and helping folks have the stability that four walls and a roof provides,” said Allen. 

District 3 is made up of 7,278 square miles, covering urban areas in Tucson and 130 miles of international border with Mexico.

And while the needs across the district vary, housing remains an issue of pandemic proportions. 

“It runs the whole gamut, it’s a very big bucket,” she said. “It includes everything from building more homes and having better homestock that’s affordable. It’s about people getting to stay in their homes and also about having both shelter beds for folks on the streets and having transitional housing so folks can cross that bridge from shelters to permanent long-term housing.”

For District 3 specifically, Allen cites the rural areas' needs for urban services as another key problem she wants to address. 

“Folks want to be involved,” she said. “They want a representative who listens, who’s accountable, who’s responsive and who will advocate for them to get things from the urban areas out to the rural areas.”

Allen believes strongly in the role of community in local government and in residents having a role in the policies that affect their lives. If she can help make that happen, she says, the Pima County Board of Supervisors will develop more meaningful solutions and more meaningful policies – creating positive ripple-effects over the long-term. 

“There's an adage, ‘nothing about us without us,’” she said. I want to make sure the communities of District Three, which are very unique, are actively engaged in the issues that are close to their home and heart.”

Olivia Krupp is a journalism major at the University of Arizona and Tucson Spotlight intern. Contact her at oliviakrupp@arizona.edu.