A Clearing House of Neighbourhood Houses in Metro Vancouver INSPIRE 2014 International Neighbourhood House & Settlement Conference Vancouver, BC, Canada Miu Chung Yan, Ph.D. Rory Sutherland, MSW Candidate The University of British Columbia School of Social Work

NHiMV Project First systematic study of NHs in Canada Four years, collaborative, funded by SSHRC Research questions: –“How do neighbourhood houses, as place-based, multi-service, community-governed, non-profit organizations, affect social equity, collective efficacy, and inclusion, based on the cases of Metro Vancouver?” Project Website:

Literature Review Settlement House concepts: –Locally governed, multiservice, accessible, mobilization of local resource, volunteer-heavy, nurturing users to serve. Recent challenges –Over-relied on government funding program-based, insensitive to local needs Purposes of the study –Providing a background for a larger study –How true are NHs to the SH concepts? –How much are NHs relying on government funding?

Questions to be answered? Are they multiservice? If so, what kind of services are they providing? How accessible are they? –Opening hours, fee, service users, languages spoken Who are governing the NHs? Who are the staff? How extensive is volunteer participation? How much do they rely on government funding?

Neighbourhood Houses: Metro Vancouver Kitsilano NH Frog Hollow NH Mt Pleasant NH Little Mountain NH Cedar Cottage NH Marpole Place NH South Vancouver NH Collingwood NH North Shore NH Kiwassa NH Downtown Eastside NH Gordon NH Burnaby NH Oak Ave NH Alexandra NH Marpole NH

Methodology N=15 Questionnaire Challenges (information on human capital): –UBC Ethics requirement – infeasible to ask for information from each employee and volunteer of NHs – bulk information from each NH, technical support from survey monkey on request Board: n=128, 81%, 50% - 100% Staff: n=745, 75.7%, 57.3% - 100% –Not all NHs have detailed information of all volunteers – estimate

Are NHs multiservice? Total No of Programs: N=444

Service Targets Total number of participants (in frequency) = 208,664

Are they accessible? 1.Membership System: a.Individual Membership Fee: $1-$15 b.Senior Membership Fee (N=3): $1-$3 c.Family Membership Fee (N=7), $5-$20 2.Main Premise (permanency and stability): a.Own, N=5 b.Lease, N=10 (mainly governments) ($1-$83,569) 3.Hours Open: a.Average Hours per Week: 51.2 (S.D=16, Median 53, Mode 54) b.Evening Hours per Week: N=11, 12.5 Hours, N=4, in need.

Are they accessible? (2) Total languages spoken by staff: 53

Who are governing the NHs? Gender: Female: N=84 (65%); Male: N=45, (35%) Age: 60, N=21(16.7%) 25-40, N=42(33.3%) 51-60, N=24(19%) Language spoken: N=24 English N(nhs)=15; French N=9; Spanish N=8; Chinese N=5; Hindi N=4 Years of Service to the Board <3 Yrs, N=69 (54%) 5-10 Yrs, N=26 (20%); 3-5 Yrs, N=27 (21%) 10 Years, N=7 (5%) Occupations : ( Top five ) Management/Business/finance/administration (N=47); Social science/education/gov’t (N=22); retired (N=15); Arts/culture/recreation (N=10); Sales and service (N=9)

Who is governing the NHs? (2)

Who is governing the NHs? (3) Immigrant status of Board Members: –Canadian Born: N=94 (73%) –Immigrant >10 years: N=27 (21%) –Immigrant 6-10 years: N=3 (2%) –Immigrant <6 years: N=4 (4%)

Who is governing the NHs? (4) Former/Existing NH Service Users: –Never, N=110; Active User, N=43; Former User, N=16 Live/Work in the Neighbourhood (more than one choice, N =110) –Current residentsN=88 –Former residentsN=15 –Working in neighbourhoodN=31 –Used to work in NH N=13 –Live and work in NHN=21 –Used to live and work in NHN=11 –OthersN=17

Who are the staff? Gender: Female: N=619 (65%); Male: N=114, (35%) Age: 60, N=31(4.4%) 25-40, N=295(42%)51-60, N=126(17.9%) Ethnicity: N=25 Top 5: Canadian (N=194), Chinese (N=103), Latin American (N=33), South Asian (N=32), Filipino (N=25) Highest Level of Education: 1.Up to High school diplomaN=104 (14.9%) 2.Up to College DiplomaN=319 (45.7%) 3.Up to Undergraduate degreeN=192 (27.5%) 4.Up to Post—graduate degreeN=83 (11.9%) –Early childhood edu (22.8%); Children and youth service (16.5%), Social service related (21.5%), Business related (5.4%), Social Work (5.2%)

Who are the staff? (2)

Who are the staff? (3) Immigrant status of Staff Members: –Canadian Born: N=324 (50.5%) –Immigrant >10 years: N=202 (31.5%) –Immigrant 6-10 years: N=65 (10.1%) –Immigrant <6 years: N=49 (7.6%)

Who are the staff? (4) Former/Existing NH Service Users: –Never:N=273 (37.2%) –Active User:N=311 (42.4%) –Former User: N=150 (20.4%) Currently Living in the Neighbourhood? –Current residentsN=321 (43.1%) –Former residents N=93 (12.5%) –OthersN=331 (44.4%)

Who are the staff? (5) Years of Service: 1.<3 YearsN=254 (34.5%) YearsN=176 (23.9%) YearsN=190 (25.8%) 4. >10 YearsN=116 (15.8%) Employment Status: Regular: N=650; Contract: 140 Regular staff: 1.35 or more hrs per weekN=352 (44.6%) 2.21 or more hrs per weekN=178 (22.5%) hrs per weekN=60 (7.6%) 4.Less than 10 hrs per weekN=60 (7.6%) Positions: Managerial (15.8%), Program Staff (45.7%), Support staff (9.3%), Others (7.1%)

What kind of volunteer participation? 1.Volunteer registration system: N=15 2.Total registered volunteers: >3,672 people, average 250 people per NH 3.Average 15,000 volunteer hours per year at each NH 4.No of Programs served: N=360 (83%) 5.Gender: 70% Female, 30% Male 6.Major languages: Chinese (N=12nh), Spanish (N=11), Korean (N=7), Vietnamese/Tagalog (N=6)

How much do they rely on government funding?

How much do they rely on government funding? (2)

How much do they rely on government funding? (3)

Discussion and Implications Neighbourhood house inherited from the tradition of the Settlement House Movement but they are no longer a settlement house –No resident stationed and relying on government funding Place-based nature –Multiservice: meeting local needs Reflection of local population (language serve, ethnicity, immigrant status among staff and volunteers, but not the board) –Locally governed (Boards) and locally operated (staff) –Volunteer participations: mobilization of local resources Participation pathway: volunteers/service users to board/staff –Permanency of infrastructure: psychological attachment

Discussion and implications (2) Funding challenges –Reliance on government funding –Short-term funding (program-based) Lack of core funding Human resources –Staff turn-over (instability) Part-time, contract position –Over or under-professionalized? Staff with training Minimum social work presence

Discussion and implications (3) Diversifying funding sources: –social enterprise? –local donations? –service coalitions to secure service contract –Creative marketing to local residents and politicians Keeping a strong community tradition –Reposition NHs as place-based mechanism with dual function: service delivery and community development –Actively induce community development/organizing components in programming Diversifying leadership –Ethnoracial equity in managerial level: unknown –Nurturing leadership among ethnic minorities and immigrants in the membership and neighbourhood

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