Sustainable community development, networks and resilience.

The operating principle behind the organization was that they would only hire people that would never get hired by anyone else, that there would be no exclusions because of active addiction or health issues. There were several operational difficulties in the first years, namely encouraging members of the community to become involved. To overcome this, Ken Lyotier actively knocked on doors and convinced people to leave their rooms. The group banked all revenues, which proved to be a key business strategy when government funding was no longer available, and before they were self-sustaining, the bank account served to demonstrate the group's legitimacy when trying to persuade other funders to support the organization through some lean times.

Today United We Can employs 33 people full-time, all of whom had not been previously employable. Their annual revenues are 1.6 million dollars, and they recycle 50,000 containers a day, which average out to 100 containers sorted each minute. They average a clientele of 700-750 street people a day, with 300 core binners every day, and process over 20 million cans and bottles a year.

With four other business streams now in development, United We Can is a social enterprise that integrates the ecological, social and economic imperatives for their sustainable community development. It is a concrete example of integrating the three imperatives--by doing something good for the environment (the ecological imperative), such as reducing waste through recycling, one creates jobs (the economic imperative), thereby augmenting agency and providing social resilience through the creation of a formal network (the social imperative). It is also a concrete example of people with little or no economic capital using social capital to jump start an initiative. The transition of this organization from a loose ad hoc coalition to a social enterprise illuminates the importance of moving from bonding social capital to bridging social capital in order to evolve from a network to a successful organization.

A Successful Use of Social Capital

What were the critical elements that enabled this ad hoc network of street people to evolve into a formally established social enterprise? Much had to be overcome; marginalized people lack a connection to others and to community, and this disconnection from a sense of belonging is a vicious cycle, exacerbating individual problems. First, a group had to form and this core group then had to foster interest among others. This sector of society is often lacking critical networks to improve their situation, and they must use what networks they have to gain access to bridging social capital--which is critical to marginalized communities, and is built through network formation. In the case of United We Can, the individuals involved used what bridging ties they did have to access seed money and used publicity to foster further ties. Individual agency may be a necessary condition before network formation and increased social capital can occur. In this case, it did appear that the organizer served as a "node" around which others gathered. In short, he was willing to work very hard to strengthen the network.

Under a social capital perspective emphasis is placed on finding the most effective ways in which citizens, service delivery agencies, institutions, and organizations interact and create linkages for developing sustainable changes in the living conditions and well-being of community members. On the basis of our research in this community, and in other communities in Canada, we maintain that this perspective is critical to sustainable community development. For marginalized sectors in a community, however, a social capital perspective must have a particular focus on agency at both the individual and collective levels.

In the case study, divers were able to overcome the individual, ad hoc nature of their 'hidden' activities by, first, collectively organizing--a simple case of coming out of the dark. Media attention certainly helped to highlight their argument about expanding the recoverables from the waste stream. As the loosely organized group continued to meet and build on their initial Victoria Park success, trust began to be built and a community of binners began to evolve. In 1995, when the recycling depot was formally established the community then had a space to collectively drop off their recyclables, receive a fair rate of return, and socially interact in a safe place that was led and organized by members of their community. Also key were the founding principle of only hiring people who ordinarily would not be employable by any one else and, more critically, flexible employment arrangements to accommodate individual needs. For example, if someone's mental health or addiction disease allowed them to work only 8 hours a week, then the enabling conditions were put in place to facilitate this. The second founding principle--that economic agency is a basic, necessary and first condition for a healthier community--was also important.

The leadership of its founder, Ken Lyotier, and his ability to leverage bridging and vertical social capital was crucial to the evolution of this network. His ability to establish contacts at all levels of society, far beyond his community, has greatly enhanced the capacity of the enterprise. Lyotier has an uncanny ability to optimize the right space, place and time conditions, and to strike strategic partnerships to facilitate his organization's evolution.

We believe that this case study research proves the capacity of marginalized communities for innovation to increase their access to economic capital and ultimately other capitals, through self-organizing network formation and informed government policy directions, leading to the creation of a place and space to continue to build social capital. Network formation is a necessary precondition for information sharing, knowledge diffusion and ultimately innovation leading to greater community resilience and the ability to have hope for the future. However the supporting social structure plays a key role; the VanCity grant greatly assisted the group in building their social capital and agency; without such support it is harder for disadvantaged communities to succeed in creating positive change. There is also some limit to targeted interviewing in which interviewees suggest further interview targets; one only maps a portion of the network, and separate sub-networks without direct connection to the network in question can go unnoticed. This limits understanding of how the initiative is viewed by the greater community. Although gaining knowledge of community critique was not the main objective of this study, it would be an interesting avenue for further research.

Social capital is also not always beneficial, and the success of this case should not be seen as a blind endorsement of the power of social capital. Research has shown that tightly knit social networks can imprison actors in maladaptive situations or facilitate undesirable behavior (Borgatti and Foster 2003). The surrounding network's opinion is central to the initial departure from convention during an innovation (Ruef 2002). If too many of the binners had felt that the effort to construct a business out of their activity was hopeless, it is unlikely that the lead organizer could have overcome community opinion. In short, social structure is both enabling and constraining (Ruef 2002).

Portes (1998) also notes that social capital can lead to excess claims on group members. In the case of United We Can, success hinged on the organizer's willingness to put in a lot of time on the project. Such reliance is neither easily reproducible in all situations nor sustainable over long periods of time. A group relying on social capital alone is not as resilient as a group with support from government and other such formal structures.

Conclusion

The "United We Can" group succeeded in using a network of social capital to create agency for change that improved the community's resilience by establishing a stable market for recyclables and providing a formal network to speak for the binners of Vancouver's East Side. The group managed to do this with very few bridging ties; they instead made very effective use of the few bridging ties they did have, and created more through media attention. All three imperatives of sustainable development were strengthened through this effort; the amount of waste diverted from landfills was increased, contributing to the ecological imperative, a stronger social network was formed, aiding the social imperative, and the income stream for a very disadvantaged group was improved, aiding the economic imperative. The long term success of this group and the community it represents remains to be seen, however.

Positive change can be difficult to maintain when the ecological, social, and economic dimensions of sustainable development are in conflict (Lamberton 2005) and the strong growth of the surrounding city is increasingly threatening Vancouver's Eastside with gentrification. The effect of these forces upon the community is a topic of further research for our team.

References

Adger, N. 2000. Social and Ecological Resilience: Are they Related? Progress in Human Geography 24(3): 347-364.

Ashman, D., L. Brown, and E. Zwick. 1998. The Strength of Strong and Weak Ties. Nonprofit Management and Leadership 9(2): 153-171.

Bhaskar, R. 1994. Plato, Etc: The Problems of Philosophy and Their Resolution. New York, Verso.

Borgatti, S. and P. Foster. 2003. The Network Paradigm in Organizational Research: A Review and Typology. Journal of Management 29(6): 991-1013.