New research, interviews, and more

Dear ,

Wow, did summer ever go fast and here we are already into fall. We hope you were able to recharge over the summer and find time to connect with friends, family and beautiful spaces and places. 

Summer was surprisingly busy in terms of publishing new content. Below you’ll find posts following up from our June Living Together symposium, an extreme heat resource round-up, a four-part series from Happy Cities on lessons about designing for social connectedness lessons from the community housing sector, new research on the relationship between housing tenure and secondary COVID impacts, interviews with our most recent group of research assistants and more.

As always, we’d love to know about your own work and interests. If you’re doing related work, please reach out!

Best wishes,

Hey Neighbour Collective

Living Together Symposium: more updates and resources

There was so much discussed on June 7th and June 8th that we’ll be publishing follow-up pieces for a few months to come!

You can find all Living Together content here, and the newer pieces below.

Mainstreaming 'sociable design' for multi-unit housing: mapping the path forward

In September 2021, we collaborated with Happy Cities on an online workshop entitled Mainstreaming Socially Connected, Affordable Housing across British Columbia, which explored cultural, financial, and policy-level challenges to building socially connected, affordable multi-unit housing communities. We were joined by architects, community organizers, developers, funders, housing industry advocates, housing providers, planners, policymakers, property managers, public health experts, and researchers.

On June 8, 2022, we built upon the September event with a similar cross-section of engaged professionals in a half-day in-person workshop.



Breaking ground in removing social barriers

In a pioneering effort, the municipal government of Barcelona, Spain in 2020 launched a ten-year strategy to reduce isolation and loneliness (PDF) in the city. Elected councillor Joan Ramon Riera Alemany recently spoke about the history and goals of the project at the Living Together Symposium.

Extreme heat resource roundup

This summer’s multiple heat events were not as devastating as 2021’s heat dome, but we should still take steps to prepare ourselves, our loved ones, neighbours, and pets for the summers to come. This July roundup offered a few ways to do just that.

Special thanks to LandlordBC for a webinar recording geared toward rental housing providers, offering tips on proactively assisting vulnerable tenants before and during extreme heat events.

Other resources from Vancouver Coastal Health, BC Centre for Disease Control, PreparedBC, and HealthlinkBC.



More housing supply isn't a cure-all for the housing crisis

Housing vulnerability means more than the lack of affordable housing — it also means housing instability, lack of housing affordances and access to neighbourhood amenities.

We wanted to share this recently published research by Meg Holden, Yushu Zhu and one of Hey Neighbour’s newest research assistants Dorin Vaez Mahdavi. It’s based on a survey done recently with over 1000 BC residents, looking at secondary impacts from COVID and public health restrictions, and the role of housing type/tenure within those.



Happy Cities series

What if a building could be built to inherently foster social connectedness? 

This is the focus of the four-part series* by Happy Cities, which looked at principles gleaned from the community housing movement. In the series, you’ll read about what makes buildings happier, the social potential of parking spaces, revamping lobbies to make them more engaging, and turning cold corridors into warm, lively spaces.



Meet our research assistants

We are so thankful for the incredible research assistants that join us at Hey Neighbour: they bring their own unique perspectives and skills to the table and we love learning more about them through personal interviews. We encourage you to read their profiles and hear about their academic interests, what brought them to Hey Neighbour, and their personal pursuits. Note that we are always bringing on new RAs so please check back regularly to see all the new faces.

Connect with Hey Neighbour Collective