(Re)building Community: The Tales of Neighbourhood Third Sector Organizations in Two Cities

1. (Re)building Community: The Tales of Neighbourhood Third Sector Organizations in Two Cities Miu Chung YAN, PhD. Assistant Professor University of British Columbia School of Social Work 2007 ICSD Hong Kong

2. Background • Racial conflicts in the multicultural reality of many developed countries. • The cosmopolitan condition of most urban centres has made people strangers to their fellow residents (Appiah, 2006). • Is community “lost,”“saved,” or “liberated” (Smith, 1996, p. 235) or even collapsed (Putnam, 2000)? • Yet, on the other hand, people’s everyday life is still primarily grounded in the local community (or more specifically the neighbourhood) in which they live and pursue their dream (Keller, 2003). • How to (re)build harmonious and functional community?

3. Recapitulation of Settlement House Movement • Toynbee Hall in 1884 by Reverend Samuel Barnett in London’s East End. • Social experiment of the Social Gospel ideal of lifting people to a higher civic and spiritual level through socially cohesive and unified community (Arneil, 2006; Meagham, 1987). • Toynbee Hall was established as a “machinery of connection” to connect people in the community for the common good (Meagham, 1987).

4. Recapitulation of Settlement House Movement • Jane Addams (1999): the whole philosophy of the settlement house movement as “solidarity of human races” which she elaborated as “the way in which he [sic] connects with his [sic] fellows; that his [sic] motives for action are the zeal and affection with which he [sic] regards his [sic] fellows” (p.95). • SH widely known as Neighbourhood Houses/Centres extended all over the world – old mission (connecting people) but new mandates (integrative not assimilative)

5. The Studies • San Francisco: Neighbourhood Centre (N=8), 1890 Telegraph Hill, community organizing functions • Vancouver: Neighbourhood Houses (N=9), 1938 Alexandra/Gordon Houses, roles and functions in newcomers integration • Participatory and multi-method approach • Individual interview (EDs, Key informants, CD workers, Board Members) • Focus group (Vancouver, Frontline and Board) • Survey (Vancouver)

6. How effective are NHs in generating ties? (Vancouver Study) • Social integration conceptualized as social capitals (i.e., functional social ties) of the service recipients and how NHs in helping them to establish social ties • N=351 • Profile of respondents: • Means: 4.4 years in Canada • 60% Chinese • 83.8% women • Mean age: 42 • Most unemployed and have one or more children

7. Close Personal Ties (Name generator) • Gender Homogamy • On average, networks 85% gender homogenous and 64.6% exclusive gender homogamy • Ethnic Homogamy • On average, 71% ethnic homogenous and 57.5% exclusive ethnic homogamy • Newcomer Homogamy • On average, 37% newcomer homogenous and 17.5% exclusive newcomer homogamy

8. Extensive Social Ties (Position generator) • On average, 3.31 extensive ties (highest 13) • Overall, non-family ties contribute more to extensivity • 36% have Extensive Ties through Family • 81% have Extensive Ties through Non-family

9. Social Capital in Use: Exchange of Favors • Relatives are important social resource • 48% both give and receive favors with relatives • Ethnic community important resource • 45% provide help for friends and neighbours of the same ethnic group. Slightly fewer receive help (37%) • Crossing ethnic boundaries rare • Over 40% never exchange favors outside ethnic groups • Just over 50% cross ethnic boundaries occasionally

10. NHs and Social Capital • Crossing ethnic community boundaries • 37% Strongly Agree and 45% Agree that NH facilitates crossing ethnic boundaries • Extensive ties • 57% have one Extensive Tie associated with NHs • 14% have Extensive Ties exclusive to NHs • 40% of all Extensive Ties linked to NHs • Exchange of favors • 20% of exchanges with another associate of the NHs

11. How do NH/Cs build community through connecting people? 1. Flexible services for people of all age groups 2. A natural hub of community building 3. Community cultural events 4. Volunteering as community building 5. Coalition building and coordination

12. Discussion • Bridging newcomers to diverse people in the community – indicators of social integration and community building • Service users as volunteers = the first step toward participation in their community. • Still the most effective machinery to connect people in the fragmented, imagined, fluid community – Putnam, Husock, Giddens • Strategic not nostalgic assimilative solidarity • Lack of social recognition – fragmented funding and over-reliance on the state funding

13. Conclusion Appiah suggests that a true cosmopolitanism requires of us “the intelligence and curiosity as well as engagement” (p.168, italics is the author’s) to live with others. If there is nothing else but at least one lesson that can be learned from the two studies on NH/Cs in Vancouver and San Francisco, it is that NH/Cs are effective “institutional machinery of connection” which can nurture and facilitate engagement among people, very often strangers, not in anywhere far but their own neighborhood, in which, as Keller (2003) suggests, people live the reality and pursue their dream together.