BC HOUSING RESEARCH PROJECTS DESCRIPTIONS

ALL PROJECTS RELATE TO TENANT ENGAGEMENT IN SOCIAL HOUSING AND COMMUNITY BUILDING/DEVELOPMENT.

Background:

BC Housing is a crown corporation responsible for assistance to British Columbians in greatest need of affordable housing by providing options along the housing continuum. We work in partnership with the private and non-profit sectors, provincial health authorities and ministries, other levels of government and community groups to develop a range of housing options. Our partners have the expertise to identify the appropriate housing needs of their client groups and to deliver the support services needed for successful tenancies. Our partners on this project are BC Healthy Communities Society who are leading the tenant engagement process at the defined sites.

In the last few years BC Housing has been working on increasing tenants overall level of satisfaction and supporting local tenant communities through activities centering around sustainability such as energy conservation, food security, community gardens, and more recently waste diversion.

The projects below focus specifically in identifying most effective ways of engagement social housing tenants on waste diversion, within an overall framework of community development and possibly using action research (where some of the research questions might be co-generated by the tenants).  BC Housing might provide access to a few specific sites that are currently participating in a pilot project on organic waste diversion (and have existing recycling programs). 

BC Housing Tenants

BC Housing tenants are considered vulnerable population therefore any projects where the students may have direct contact with the tenants the contact must be supervised and prior to such contacts the students need to have a criminal record check and the institution will need to provide liability insurance, students may also have to submit an ethics review within the university.

Types of projects:

1. Immediate Projects- SFU Enactus – Hunger Actions (financial literacy and food security) program opportunity at Greenbrook (a social housing site located in Surrey) and potentially other sites as well (Lead: BC Housing –Community Developer).

2. Immediate short term practicum opportunity (duration from one month to one semester) (lead: BC Healthy Communities).  This may include literature review, theoretical analysis, historical inquiry, interviews or focus groups to answer all or part of the defined research questions.

3. Longer term (at least a full semester, upwards of 1-2 years) preferably third or fourth year undergraduate or Master’s level projects. These could be through LivWell (focus on supporting individuals with chronic conditions) or other graduate opportunities (ie. Sustainability etc.).

Note that BC Housing is open to revising and fine-tuning these following Project Overviews with the interested students according to their own requirements for their academic programs.

Project #1

Main research question/ hypothesis:

How can we develop long term tenant capacity (using a community development approach) and concurrently identify effective drivers/ motivators for long term change in sustainability behavior (specifically focusing on waste diversion) among social housing tenants in BC?

Associated research questions:

What are the values or worldviews that underpin or relate with these drivers/motivators? How do these drivers differ for social housing versus private market tenants? What are potential long term models of community support/capacity building that could be adopted for tenants with barriers such as physical or mental health challenges, poverty, drugs and addictions, etc. to sustain change in the long term?

Brief project description: 

There are myriad drivers or motivators for making, and sustaining, behavior change. Information campaigns or education alone are not enough. The spectrum of reasons that people become motivated to make a change towards sustainability is a relatively less well known area of community development and sustainability. This research project or practicum engages this fascinating question specifically regarding waste diversion in social housing sites.

Required level of supervision: 

High due to the need for engaging human subjects in vulnerable populations.

Suggested methods:

Participatory action research, or grounded theory, which means that there is a component of the research that is oriented towards community wellbeing. In other words, it is not research intended for a library shelf, but rather research that carries the intent to be relevant, meaningful and applicable to the communities that participate in generating data. In some cases, this will mean that the specific research questions will be refined, fine-tuned, or even co-generated by the tenants.

Does it require direct contact with the tenants: (Yes/No)

Yes

Timeline: 

3 months at a minimum and longer term 1-2 years)

Publication: 

Results could be publicized through BC Housing, BC Healthy Communities, relevant community development/sustainability journals

Project #2

Main research question/ hypothesis:

How effective is Community Based Social Marketing (CBSM) when applied to waste diversion in a social housing setting, and how might this compare to the general population?

Associated research questions:

Does CBSM work at all at social housing sites? Are there measures that would allow meaningful comparison between social housing sites and private market sites, and if so, what are they? 

Brief project description: 

CBSM is an innovative process of engaging communities in change processes. “Community-based social marketing is based upon research in the social sciences that demonstrates that behavior change is most effectively achieved through initiatives delivered at the community level which focus on removing barriers to an activity while simultaneously enhancing the activities benefits”. (McKenzie-Mohr, 2012)

CBSM involves four steps:

1) Identifying the barriers and benefits to an activity,

2) Developing a strategy that utilizes “tools” that have been shown to be effective in changing behavior,

3) Piloting the strategy

4) Evaluating the strategy once it has been implemented across a community.

This approach has been acclaimed for use in certain community settings. It remains unknown as to whether this is a more effective approach in a social housing setting compared to the general public. As part of a larger inquiry into what change process would be most appropriate and effective for these social housing populations, this project seeks to evaluate and compare the CBSM approach in social housing compared to the general population to shifting sustainability behaviors.

Required level of supervision: 

Low to Medium. Low if this research would involve studying and comparing change models rather than directly engaging tenants. Medium-High if the researcher (perhaps a MA student) were to carry out the CBSM in two sample sites, social housing and general population.

Suggested methods:

Does it require direct contact with the tenants: (Yes/No) 

Not necessarily, see “Required Level of Supervision” above.

Timeline: 

1-3 months, or longer depending on the student’s requirements and availability; see “Required Level of Supervision” above

Project #3

Main research question/ hypothesis:

What are the most effective drivers/ motivators for a long term change in terms of adoption of a sustainability behavior specifically focusing on waste diversion among social housing tenants in BC. How can tenant capacity at social housing sites be built through linking food security and sustainability (specifically waste diversion)?

Additional research questions: 

What social discourse contributes to change in this context?

Brief project description:

How can addressing food security and sustainability (waste diversion) together contribute to both tenant capacity and change? How can we impact the social discourse to encourage and sustain long term change in both the well-being of the tenants and at the same time address waste diversion and the well-being of the planet?

Required level of supervision: 

Medium to High

Suggested methods: 

Participatory Action Research – see above

Does it require direct contact with the tenants: (Yes/No)

Yes

Timeline:

1 year