(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
Background
• Racial conflicts in the multicultural reality of many
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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?
Recapitulation of Settlement House
Movement
• Toynbee Hall in 1884 by Reverend Samuel
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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).
Recapitulation of Settlement House
Movement
• Jane Addams (1999): the whole philosophy of
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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)
The Studies
• San Francisco: Neighbourhood Centre (N=8),
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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)
How effective are NHs in
generating ties? (Vancouver Study)
• Social integration conceptualized as social
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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
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
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
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
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
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
Discussion
• Bridging newcomers to diverse people in the
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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
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.