Reports and Publications

Through its partnership with Hey Neighbour Collective, Building Resilient Neighbourhoods helped to bring Connect & Prepare to three new BC municipalities, in collaboration with resident champions, housing operators, local government emergency management and community planning staff, and non-profit organizations.

Fndings from the recently completed Hey Neighbour Collective (HNC) report ‘How sociable is life in multi-unit housing?’. This report provides aggregated and comparative results of two annual resident surveys (2021 & 2022) across the properties of HNC members Brightside Community Homes Foundation  and Catalyst Community Developments Society.

Happy Cities, Hey Neighbour Collective, and SFU assessed the impact of the City of North Vancouver’s Active Design Guidelines, identifying key lessons for supporting social connection in multi-unit housing.

Happy Cities, Hey Neighbour Collective, and Simon Fraser University are working with six local governments in Metro Vancouver to co-create policies for social wellbeing in multi-unit housing.

Design strategies and research to support aging in the right place, from a collaborative multi-unit rental building project between Happy Cities, Hey Neighbour Collective, SFU’s Department of Gerontology, Concert Properties and Brightside Community Homes.

Reflecting on HNC’s first three years, this report details activities, learnings, and shared priorities moving forward.

Practice guide for implementing resident-led social programming in multi-unit rental housing.

Fourth in a series of four guides from Hey Neighbour Collective about strategies and practices to increase neighbour-to-neighbour connections and social resilience among residents living in multi-unit housing.

Canada is simultaneously experiencing a severe housing crisis and – like many other countries – a crisis of increasing loneliness and social isolation. Intervening to tackle loneliness and social isolation…

Third in a series of four guides from Hey Neighbour Collective about strategies and practices to increase neighbour-to-neighbour connections and social resilience among residents living in multi-unit housing.

Efforts to tackle social isolation among older Canadians could produce a wealth of health and lifestyle benefits for the country’s aging population. But the National Institute on Ageing also argues…

Drawing on a B.C.-wide survey of 1,004 residents conducted from March to April 2021, our recent study shows that unaffordability is only one type of housing vulnerability that has taken its toll on British Columbians during the COVID-19 pandemic.

It isn’t just our family ties, close friendships, or group membership that make a difference. It’s neighbours.

This report provides results of the initial 2020-21 round of resident surveys completed by 619 residents of housing provided by Catalyst Community Developments Society, Brightside Community Homes Foundation, and Concert Properties in British Columbia.

The SFU Research team recently completed “A Picture is Worth 1000 Words”, a Photovoice project which explores people’s experiences of social connection and isolation. 

Led by Dr. Meg Holden, the SFU Research Team has published an article on The Conversation Canada about the importance of prioritizing social connections during the COVID-19 recovery.

The Hey Neighbour Collective has prepared this input for the review of Metro 2040’s goal area 4.2: Develop healthy and complete communities with access to a range of services and amenities.