Problems and Purpose

Your Voice Your Home: Meeting the Housing Needs of Burnaby Residents was an innovative public engagement initiative designed to address Burnaby’s current and future housing needs. It provided a unique opportunity for residents, community members and stakeholders to come together, share ideas and experiences, and engage with one another to find workable solutions. 

Background History and Context

Residents of Burnaby and across the region are currently experiencing a housing crisis. Housing costs have risen in recent years, existing affordable homes are being lost, supply is not meeting local demand and many residents are being left behind. In February 2019, the City of Burnaby engaged Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue to independently design and facilitate an innovative public engagement initiative to address Burnaby’s current and future housing needs. Your Voice. Your Home. Meeting the Housing Needs of Burnaby Residents (hereafter referred to as Your Voice Your Home) provides a set of unique opportunities for community members to gather and share ideas, present recommendations and engage with one another to find workable solutions.

Organizing, Supporting, and Funding Entities

The City of Burnaby funded and co-led this initiative. Burnaby is a vibrant city at the geographic centre of Metro Vancouver. The City of Burnaby provides facilities and services that support a safe, connected, inclusive, healthy and dynamic community. As the third-largest city in B.C., Burnaby is home to more than 232,000 residents (2016 Census) and is projected to grow to 345,000 by 2041.

Your Voice. Your Home. Meeting the Housing Needs of Burnaby Residents is an innovative partnership between the City of Burnaby and SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, designed to hear from the community and inform the work of the Mayor’s Task Force on Community Housing.

Participant Recruitment and Selection

Your Voice Your Home Marketing

The City of Burnaby and the Centre for Dialogue promoted Your Voice Your Home in several different ways. The result of this outreach was 1450 survey respondents, 180 registrations for the Community Ideas Workshop (with 100 participants attending after attrition), over 400 resident interactions with the Community Student Ambassadors and 350 registrations for the Community Recommendations Workshop. In total, Phase One engaged approximately 2380 individuals. This strong community interest reinforces just how important and urgent the issue of housing is for Burnaby.

To launch Your Voice Your Home and in order to reach as many Burnaby residents as possible, a postcard was sent to every household in the City. This postcard encouraged residents to get involved and share their housing views and experiences. In addition, the City of Burnaby promoted the project through social media and local advertising.

Specific Outreach and Recruitment for the Community Recommendations Workshop:

For the Community Recommendations Workshop, recruitment involved extensive outreach to ensure that the 74 randomly selected residents and 23 community organization representatives reflected the diverse demographics, needs and interests of Burnaby.

Outreach

SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue and the City of Burnaby worked together to promote the workshop to residents and community organizations. A variety of communications channels were used to publicize the event, including:

• Postcards to every household, encouraging residents to register for the workshop
• Your Voice. Your Home. webpage on the City of Burnaby website
• Direct outreach to stakeholder groups
• Targeted promotion to strategic demographics (youth participants)
• Recruitment through Community Student Ambassadors
• Extensive social media outreach and promotion

Selection Process

The overall objective of the selection process was to achieve a group of workshop participants who broadly reflected Burnaby’s population and the housing interests of its residents.

The Centre developed a Terms of Reference which featured several key principles to guide its selection process:

• Workshop participation will be widely promoted to ensure a diversity of perspectives and interests and to increase participation by residents who do not regularly engage in civic affairs.
• The Centre will use a random selection process to choose between interested residents, with specific steps in place to ensure appropriate demographic representation around each table and participation by equity-seeking populations.
• The Centre will over-recruit groups that face heightened levels of housing insecurity and/or normally experience higher levels of attrition to ensure that each table benefits from the knowledge and lived experience of these groups.
• The Centre will reserve two spaces at each table for community-based organizations, recognizing the important knowledge and perspectives these groups provide.

Workshop registration was open between February 21, 2019 and March 29, 2019. During this period 348 individuals registered their interest to participate. The workshop was designed for 100 participants, due to venue and group size considerations. To account for attrition and last minute cancellations, the Centre invited 126 individuals to attend.

To balance community input in a fair and transparent way, the Centre designed a selection process that included both random selection for interested residents as well as reserved seats for community organizations. Primary demographic selection criteria included: gender, tenancy, income, age and recent immigrants.

For these criteria, the Centre set targets based on the 2016 Census. As a secondary objective, organizers also tried to include a number of parents with young children. The selection process and criteria was developed in consultation with the City of Burnaby.

In total, 97 participants attended the workshop. Overall, gender, tenure and age were particularly well-matched to Burnaby’s overall demographics. Youth aged 16 to 30 years old made up 24 percent of participants, which although below census numbers, is high compared to typical public engagement initiatives. To support diverse participation across socio-economic levels, the Centre administered up to 20 accessibility grants to participants who self-identified as requiring financial assistance to attend the workshop.

Methods and Tools Used

Phase One – Generating Ideas

Phase One was focused on hearing from Burnaby residents. It provided a series of engagement opportunities for the community to share their voices, ideas, experiences as well as possible solutions. The objective was to collect as many ideas as possible from as many residents as possible, with an emphasis on diversity. It was important to ensure that Phase One included diverse voices and opinions, capturing the full-range of housing experiences in Burnaby.

Phase One was comprised of three main activities: the Community Housing Survey, the Community Ideas Workshop and targeted community outreach through a team of Community Student Ambassadors, all of which are detailed in this report.

This report was to be presented to Burnaby City Council and the Mayor’s Task Force on Community Housing to inform the Task Force’s Interim Report, which will identify short-term actions and long-term objectives towards housing affordability.

Phase Two – Trade Offs and Solutions

Phase Two of Your Voice Your Home was to build upon the ideas from Phase One, consider different options to improve housing in Burnaby and evaluate trade-offs. Similar to Phase One, this phase was to provide a series of public engagement opportunities for Burnaby residents. These activities include: a second online survey to evaluate quick starts, a Discussion Guide, and a Community Recommendations Workshop. A Community Recommendations Report was to be presented to the Mayor’s Task Force on Community Housing to inform its Final Report.

Phase Three – Action

The final phase of the project will be action by the City of Burnaby. Based on the community recommendations presented in Phase Two, the Mayor’s Task Force on Community Housing will present a Final Report to Council focusing on specific actions to meet Burnaby’s housing needs.

What Went On: Process, Interaction, and Participation

Phase One Engagement Activities:

Engagement activities for Phase One of Your Voice Your Home included:

• A Community Housing Survey with 1450 responses, open between February 21st and March 10th, 2019, seeking public input on housing needs, challenges and solutions;
• A three-hour Community Ideas Workshop on March 6th, 2019, attended by 100 residents to collect community input on affordable housing;
• A series of phone interviews and in–person meetings with key community stakeholders; and
• A three-week outreach program designed to reach Burnaby residents who were unlikely or unable to participate in the online survey and workshop. Ten Community Student Ambassadors hosted informal community meetings and discussions across Burnaby to collect information on housing experiences and possible solutions.

1. Community Housing Survey:

1.1. Purpose

The Community Housing Survey was designed to collect information from Burnaby residents and stakeholders regarding housing challenges, needs, potential solutions as well as important demographic information.

1.2. Survey Overview

In just over two weeks, the online survey generated input from 1450 individuals making it the strongest survey response ever for a City of Burnaby public engagement activity.

The survey asked residents how well their current housing met their needs, their perceptions of housing affordability, what they felt was the biggest housing challenge affecting Burnaby and specific steps the City could take to address affordability.

2. Community Ideas Workshop:

2.1. Background

The Community Ideas Workshop brought together 100 Burnaby residents for an interactive evening of discussions on housing affordability. Mayor Hurley provided opening remarks and the City of Burnaby provided a short presentation highlighting current housing data.

2.2. Objectives

Workshop participants had the opportunity to learn more about and discuss:

• The current housing situation in Burnaby;
• Factors contributing to housing unaffordability and affordability;
• What residents value about housing; and
• Concrete actions the City of Burnaby can take to address affordable housing.

2.3. Ideas for Defining Success

Workshop participants were asked to imagine the future of housing in Burnaby in 2022 and more specifically, to envision what housing would look like if Your Voice Your Home and the Mayor’s Task Force on Community Housing were successful. Ideas raised by participants for Burnaby’s housing future included:

• Renovictions no longer exist;
• Mixed housing spaces are common;
• Speculation and empty homes are a thing of the past;
• Land is more efficiently used through densification; and
• Green space and mountain views are maintained.

From this visioning exercise, participants also raised several values about housing. Residents described a future where: housing is considered a basic right, all levels of government are engaged and collaborate, increased transparency and consultation between residents and governments exists, and new housing developments are designed to create more livable communities.

2.4. Ideas for Housing

For the second activity, participants were asked to brainstorm concrete actions the City of Burnaby could take to fulfill their housing visions. Participants wrote their top idea on a sticky note and posted them to an ‘Ideas Wall’.

The most common ideas included:

• Convert/rezone single family units to multi-family units;
• Increase the number of non-market and co-op housing units;
• Target housing towards the needs of seniors and low-income populations;
• Allow construction of laneway and coach houses;
• Invest in building and supporting affordable housing;
• Increase the stock of rental units; and
• Implement a municipal speculation/vacancy tax.

2.5. Additional Information Requested by Participants:

To close the workshop, participants had the opportunity to provide feedback on the event, as well as identify any additional required information through an exit survey.

Participants requested the following additional information:

• Inventory of empty houses/units;
• Numbers of short-term rentals;
• Number of affordable units being lost;
• Additional clarity on market rate housing statistics; and
• Number and types of homes being built annually.

Specific requests included:

• Summary of how current bylaws, zoning restrictions and other city policies affect landlords, developers, renters and homeowners;
• Information on how the rezoning process takes place; and
• How the City of Burnaby uses revenue generated from development fees and density bonusing.

3. Community Student Ambassadors

In addition to the Community Housing Survey and the Community Ideas Workshop, a group of 10 Community Student Ambassadors (CSAs) hosted small informal housing-related community discussions across Burnaby. While the survey and the workshop required Burnaby residents to self-identify and reach out, these 10 Community Student Ambassadors reached in to the community to meet and speak with residents directly. All CSAs were current students or recent alumni of Simon Fraser University with diverse language competencies and aptitude for facilitating dialogue.

Between March 6th and April 1st 2019, the CSAs reached out to various stakeholder groups in Burnaby, and visited different public facilities and events across the City. Residents talked about what was important for them in a home, housing challenges and impacts, their families and communities, as well as short-term and long-term solutions. This section summarizes the input gathered by the CSAs.

3.1. Outreach

The CSAs were asked to reach out to a variety of residents and groups — a combination of community organizations serving Burnaby residents, their own personal and community networks and public spaces. The objective was to engage as wide a variety of residents as possible and in particular, those who would not likely have engaged through the online survey or the Community Ideas Workshop. Considering the short timeline, CSAs were instructed to concentrate their outreach efforts towards low-income newcomers, youth and senior residents. Over the course of three weeks, the CSAs were able to reach more than 400 Burnaby residents.

List of community organizations engaged: Burnaby Neighbourhood House (various programs including an ESL class, Senior programs, Food Hub program, Single Moms group, Family Drop-in), Services To Adults with Developmental Disabilities (STADD), Edmonds Community School (Spring break Pick-up and drop-off), Confederation Seniors Centre, Willingdon Community Centre – Parent Drop-off Spring Break Camp, Eileen Daily Pool, Filipino SDA Church, Scandinavian Community Centre, Burnaby Together, Running Club page, Spirit of the Children Society, Ethiopian community meeting at YMCA, Cranberry Commons Co-housing, Tommy Douglas Library, McGill Public Library, Egyptian Canadian Cultural Society of BC, Bonsor Community Centre.

Examples of public places visited: Central Park, Patterson SkyTrain station, Patterson bus loop, Metrotown bus loop, coffee shops in Burnaby, and the SFU Burnaby campus.

3.2. What is Important in a Home?

Residents spoke about what is important in a home and what they value in their communities. They noted that having a roof over your head is the bare minimum. Having access to social services such as clinics, community-based organizations and schools were also very important, particularly if they were within close proximity. For many, schools were viewed as a community hub and were an important part of their home. Other amenities such as grocery stores, restaurants and local businesses were mentioned as important parts of a community, especially if residents personally knew the business owners and employees. Parks were also highly regarded as a perk of living in Burnaby. Residents also expressed the importance of living close to other families as this created a sense of community. For many, community and friends were the most important reason to stay in Burnaby. Neighbourhoods were viewed as an extension of homes. Generally, residents highlighted the relative safety of Burnaby and its quiet neighbourhoods as something they appreciated — although it was clear that this is not the case for all residents.

Phase Two Engagement Activities:

Engagement activities for Phase Two of Your Voice Your Home included:

• a second online survey to evaluate quick starts;
• a Discussion Guide; and
• a Community Recommendations Workshop.

A Community Recommendations Report was presented to the Mayor’s Task Force on Community Housing to inform its Final Report.

1. Discussion Guide:

To help prepare and inform participants, the Centre for Dialogue distributed a Discussion Guide two weeks prior to the workshop. The guide used accessible language and infographics to ensure that residents had a common information base. The guide contained factual information about housing in Burnaby to support participant discussions and outlined five different housing approaches intended to provoke thought and enable participants to compare their viewpoints against a wide range of housing perspectives.

2. Community Recommendations Workshop:

The Community Recommendations Workshop provided a unique opportunity for a representative group of Burnaby residents and stakeholders to make recommendations to the Mayor’s Task Force on Community Housing.

Convened by SFU’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, the Community Recommendations Workshop engaged 97 Burnaby residents and stakeholders. Through the process of deliberative dialogue, participants worked in plenary and small groups to listen deeply to each other’s perspectives, consider trade-offs and develop table recommendations in the best interests of all Burnaby residents. In total, participants made 42 recommendations, from which six key themes and two additional findings emerged.

2.1 Workshop Agenda

The Community Recommendations Workshop ran from 9:00 am – 4:30 pm on Saturday May 25, 2019. Participants were seated at 14 tables with six to eight participants each, based on an assigned seating chart created by Centre staff to ensure a diversity of demographics and interests at each table.

Over the course of the day, residents participated in a range of plenary and break-out activities aimed to: increase knowledge of housing trends and facts; build empathy for different needs and perspectives; foster trust and collaboration; and most importantly, create recommendations in the best interests of all residents.

Major activities included:

• Housing Facts Presentation (in plenary): The City of Burnaby presented key housing facts from the Discussion Guide and answered participant questions.
• Housing Approaches Tour (in small groups):
• Participants rotated through 5 stations, familiarizing themselves with the different housing approaches presented in the Discussion Guide and visualizing (through drawings and words) the possible impacts of implementing each approach.
• Walking in Your Neighbour’s Shoes (in small groups): Using a series of different housing profiles based on input collected in Phase One, participants selected a profile, considered the housing experience it represented and then advocated for what that person would need to improve their specific housing situation.
• Deliberation to Create Table Recommendations (in small groups): Participants each generated possible ideas for actions Burnaby could take to address its housing challenges. Next, each table deliberated and agreed upon three specific actions to recommend. Each of the 14 tables reached consensus, advancing three recommendations each.
• Pitches (in plenary): One representative from each table pitched their table’s three recommendations to the Mayor, members of Council and members of the Mayor’s Task Force on Community Housing, as well as fellow workshop participants.
• Entrance and Exit Surveys (individually): Participants were asked to complete two workshop surveys, one at the beginning of the workshop and one at the end. The surveys measured personal attitudes towards housing issues, support for specific policy actions, as well satisfaction with the overall event and consultation process. Each anonymous survey was assigned a tracking code, allowing Centre staff to pair pre- and post-surveys and compare changes to specific questions over the course of the dialogue.
• In addition to the activities listed above, Mayor of Burnaby Mike Hurley made opening and closing remarks.

3. Online Engagement:

The City of Burnaby launched the Your Voice Your Home webpage on February 21st, 2019, and over the span of one month the page received over 3,300 unique visitors. In addition to the survey link and registration for the Community Ideas Workshop and Community Recommendations Workshop, residents could also share input directly though: [email protected].

Influence, Outcomes, and Effects

Community Ideas Workshop: Session Evaluation Results

Respondents clearly indicated a desire for transparent information, no predetermined outcomes, ongoing communication, inclusion of diverse stakeholders and frequent future engagement opportunities. Of those who attended the March 6th, 2019 workshop:

• 91% felt somewhat or completely satisfied with their experience;
• 98% felt they were able to learn a limited or a great amount of information about housing in Burnaby;
• 70% somewhat or strongly agreed the workshop participants reflected the full diversity of the Burnaby community;
• 87% felt they had ‘fair’ or ‘plenty’ of opportunities to express their views;
• When asked about the likeliness that the City of Burnaby can develop an action plan that meets the housing needs of all residents, 19% were confident in the City’s ability, 42% felt that it was somewhat likely, 10% thought it would be very unlikely and the remaining 29% were unsure or did not know.
• Finally, 90% somewhat or strongly agreed that the workshop generated a wide range of ideas.

Community Recommendations Workshop: Session Results

Participants also expressed their individual preferences in a post-dialogue exit survey. Eighty-seven percent of respondents were satisfied with their dialogue experience and 86 percent agreed that workshop participants “were representative of the full diversity of opinions and interests in Burnaby.” By the end of the dialogue, 90 percent of participants thought it was likely that Burnaby could develop a housing strategy that balances different community perspectives, an increase of 25 percent compared to the start of the workshop.

Future Project

In 2021, the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue will independently reconvene a small group of workshop participants for a housing-related community reference panel. The objective of this discussion will be to assess and provide feedback on the City’s housing actions in relation to participants’ recommendations.

Reference panel participants will be selected from those who self-identified or were nominated by peers at the May 25th Community Recommendations Workshop.

Analysis and Lessons Learned

The issue of affordable housing is one of the most pressing and complex issues facing the City of Burnaby and more broadly, Metro Vancouver and the Province of B.C. Your Voice. Your Home. was designed to respond to this challenge and the housing needs of current and future Burnaby residents.

The Your Voice. Your Home. process represented a unique and rare opportunity to bring together residents and community stakeholders to help shape Burnaby’s housing future and more specifically, to make recommendations in the best interests of all residents.

In order to ensure meaningful and effective engagement, the process:

• Sought out participants who reflected the full diversity of interests and perspectives
• Created conditions for informed public judgment
• Embraced a multitude of learning and communication styles
• Used dialogue to bridge differences and increase mutual understanding
• Provided an opportunity for participants to present their recommendations to key municipal decision-makers
• Prioritized transparency and closing the loop with participants

Workshop participants demonstrated remarkable dedication, leadership and collaboration, while sharing their respective views, experiences and needs. Participants worked hard to bridge differences in individual perspectives and identify recommendations in the best interest of the entire community.

The overall tone of the dialogue was positive, respectful and productive. This level of participation, combined with participants’ ability to identify areas of compromise and mutual agreement, provides a strong reference point for the Mayor’s Task Force on Community Housing, City Council and the City of Burnaby to consider when shaping and developing future housing policies, priorities and programming.

This collaboration helps to demonstrate that when provided with the appropriate tools and support, residents from very different backgrounds and perspectives can work together to provide high quality input into City decision-making processes.

See Also

Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue

References

The original submission of this case entry was adapted from Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue. (2019). What We Heard Report, Your Voice. Your Home, published under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-ND). It has since been edited and expanded by the Participedia community and does not necessarily reflect the views of Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue.

Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue. (2019). Discussion Guide, Your Voice. Your Home: Meeting the Housing Needs of Burnaby Residents. Available at: https://www.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/centre-for-dialogue/News%20and%20Events/2019/Your%20Voice%20Your%20Home%20Discussion%20Guide.pdf

Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue. (2019). Community Recommendations Report, Your Voice. Your Home. Meeting the Housing Needs of Burnaby Residents. Available at: https://www.sfu.ca/content/dam/sfu/centre-for-dialogue/News%20and%20Events/2019/Your%20Voice.%20Your%20Home%20Community%20Recommendations%20Report.pdf

External Links

Simon Fraser University’s Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue - Your Voice Your Home Reports

https://www.burnaby.ca/City-Services/Policies--Projects---Initiatives/Your-Voice/Community-Housing.html

Notes

This project and partnership have received many accolades. In 2019, Burnaby Now named the Mayor’s Task Force on Community Housing the 2019 Newsmaker of the Year. In 2020, the project was recognized by IAP2 Canada as runner-up for the Core Values Award for Creativity, Contribution and Innovation in the Field. Lastly, at the 2020 Union of British Columbia Municipalities Community Excellence Awards, the City of Burnaby received ‘honourable mention’ in the Excellence in Governance category for the same project.