Our tagline, building a people-first future, reflects a sentiment that has been a part of Concert since the beginning.
From our start as a provider of assured rental housing, to our history and ongoing focus on building people-oriented master-planned communities, our focus is on building long-lasting spaces where ongoing connections thrive.
This is the foundation of the community building work we’ve been doing within our BC rental buildings. After working with the City of Vancouver in 2017-18 to complete a pilot program, Hey Neighbour!, and continuing the work with Happy City in 2020, we launched our own Connecting our Communities program across all rental buildings in Metro Vancouver and Victoria six months ago.
The program now has 16 volunteer Community Connectors who have spent the last six months working together to plan and execute activities that bring neighbours within their buildings together, with the goal of combating loneliness and increasing happiness.
With nearly 30 events held in the last six months, a small celebration was held on October 14, 2021 to acknowledge the great work accomplished so far. Community Connectors from the Vancouver and Victoria areas came together virtually for an evening with Flavours of Hope, a non-profit social enterprise supporting and empowering female newcomers in our communities.
“Loneliness and isolation, particularly in urban centres, are becoming a global health crisis,” says Dave Ramslie, Vice President, Innovation and Sustainability. “This is why we have chosen to build on our findings from the Hey Neighbour! pilot and institute long-term programming that supports and empowers resident-led activities.”
Since the launch of Connecting our Communities, Concert has been gathering data from residents to determine whether and how the programming has made an impact on feelings of loneliness and/or happiness.
In the spring, a final survey will be sent and the data will be analyzed. This data will be used, alongside a post-mortem of the last year, to expand the program to our rental residences in Ontario and shape the programming and design within our future master-planned communities.