Canada has maintained a high level of immigration of around 250,000 people on average per year for two decades. While the large number of immigrants bring in expertise, investment and a workforce that contribute significantly to a sustainable Canadian economy, they also come with an aspiration for a safer and better life. Immigrants are also important actors in Canada’s evolving social fabric, in terms of ethnicity, culture and religion, and social practices.
The latest Census shows foreign-born residents account for 39.6% of the Vancouver metropolitan area’s total population, surpassing other major immigrant cities like Miami (36.5%), Los Angeles (34.7%) and Melbourne (28.9%), and second only to Toronto (45.7%) in North America and Australia. Half of Vancouverites do not speak English as their first language. Since immigrants account for a significant percentage of Vancouver’s neighborhoods, making it one of the most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities in the world, immigrant issues are likely to dominate most significant community issues.
Vancouver now has nine Neighborhood Houses that share, more or less, the same mission to provide settlement services and community development programs that help immigrants settle and integrate into their new neighborhoods. The idea of Neighborhood Houses was developed from settlement houses that served similar functions and became widespread in North America in the late 19th century (Sandercock 2009). Today, the role of Neighborhood Houses has gone beyond serving the immediate needs of newcomers only; they are also mandated to improve the quality of life of immigrants, empower them with social rights, and recognize the contributions of community members. The programs and services the organizations offer range from newcomer-oriented workshops (providing employment, civil services and skill trainings) to recreational activities for residents from all age groups and cultures, and to family support and youth programs, as well as to social functions like community gardens, dinners and festivals targeting all community members.
At the Little Mountain Neighborhood House, located on Vancouver’s Main Street, an ESL class for a group of Spanish-speaking immigrants (mainly from Mexico, Chile, Peru and Guatemala) takes place every Friday evening. In most cases, there are husband-wife, mother-children, adult-elder generation groupings, or even the entire families. Some of them live over an hour away from the neighborhood house, but still they show up every time. They come into the neighborhood house with hugs and leave it with smiles. For them, it’s not only an opportunity to improve their language abilities, more importantly the class serves as a reception space for clients, staff, and volunteers from different backgrounds to meet and greet, exchange cultures and lifestyles, share happiness and difficulties of their lives, and thus build a sense of belonging and community development.
ESL class, community festival & dinner. Source: Little Mountain Neighborhood House
As the first contact and source of support for many newcomers to Vancouver, the Neighborhood Houses also play an important role in communicating Canadian values to new members of this “big family”. Immigrants tend to fall into disadvantaged positions during the process of “uprooting” from abroad and “replanting” here. In this context, the Neighborhood Houses provide access to learning and practicing citizen rights and responsibilities, and nurturing both a cross-cultural environment and respect to individuals and their respective cultures and religions. Eventually, such values can carry on to the wider community and subsequent generations that are key to the prosperity of the “Canadian mosaic”.