You are God For a Week - Bhutan, etc.

I Can’t Get No Satisfaction
Time Balance, Financial Security Biggest Barriers to Happiness in Capital

You are God for a week. You have one more miracle left. You can cure the blind or relieve chronic back pain.

Which choice will make for a happier world? Hmmm. A difficult decision isn’t it?

Surprisingly, relief of chronic back pain is the clear winner. Like lottery winners who get happy for a short burst, or, at the other end of the spectrum, paraplegics who lose the use of their legs and become depressed for a time, we humans get used to things quickly and return to a certain steady state of happiness. Those ‘cured’ of their blindness will likely get used to seeing and return to a level of happiness somewhere near where they started. Chronic pain, however, is a constant irritant and, unless treated, will make us very unhappy for a long time.

The economics of happiness looks at evidence to better make these trade-offs. The trick is finding and measuring things in a systematic, meaningful and accurate way. If the pursuit of happiness seems silly to you, consider that the World Bank, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), United Nations and others have recently declared developing better measures of progress – happiness (also called subjective well-being), quality of life, sustainability – as priorities.

When last I left you we were somewhere in the Himalayan Kingdom of Bhutan, population 700,000, trying to find ways of measuring their country’s progress using a newly developed Gross National Happiness (GNH) Index. No policy or program can be developed without considering GNH in this country that’s twice the size of the RDCK.

The Bhutanese have recently tried their first happiness survey, one that takes seven hours to complete. Ouch! One of the survey’s developers, Mike Pennock, an epidemiologist for Vancouver Island Health Authority (VIHA), thought the idea so great, he brought the survey home and tested it in Greater Victoria. Not the seven hour version, though.

With support from eight organizations including the province, the regional district, VIHA, the United Way and Victoria Community Foundation, Victorians became the guinea pigs for the rest of the world in November 2008. While questions of well-being have often been part of surveys, this survey was ALL about happiness and satisfaction.

Greater Victorians scored 76 out of a possible 100 in both happiness and satisfaction, scoring highest in freedom from deprivation (92) and availability of social support in times of crisis (83). Some of the lower scores were in interpersonal trust (69), ability to participate in cultural, arts and recreational events (65), satisfaction with governance (67), and the quality of the local environment (63). The lowest scores were in the areas of satisfaction with financial circumstances and security (53) and time balance (46).

Pennock was surprised at the very low score in time balance. He believes that financial and time-related stresses are affecting many people as well as people trying to care for and provide activities for their kids. Interestingly, the richest and poorest reported the most stress. Long commuting times are also taking their toll, with commuters from Sooke, Colwood and Metchosin scoring much lower than those living in the core of Victoria. About one in four Victorians spends little or no time doing what they really enjoy.

When Victorians were asked what would given them the most additional satisfaction in their life, less stress and more financial security were the top two answers, with 66% of the 2,400 respondents wanting these. Only 6% believed more possessions would bring them additional satisfaction.

While Victoria’s score of 76 may seem high, it ranked 35th of 45 Canadian communities recently surveyed using the basic happiness and satisfaction question. The highest scoring community was Granby, Quebec with many East Coast communities also scoring near the top. Pennock credits the East Coast dominance to their tight social networks. In a country comparison, Canada stands in the top 5, slightly behind leaders Denmark (82) and Switzerland (80).

With Greater Victoria’s survey information, the Capital Regional District and its partners hope to make some decisions that improve the happiness and satisfaction of Victorians. For instance, more resources may go towards chronic and mental illness, changing commuting patterns or better informing Victorians of what makes them happy (study after study shows we’re pretty hopeless at recording our happiness accurately unless we keep a record and ask the right questions).

With a few tweaks, the survey next travels to some Brazilian communities. Now that is has a benchmark established, Victoria hopes to do an on-line version of the survey on a yearly basis and offer a toolkit to other interested communities. If you’re interested in bringing this to the Kootenays, please e-mail me at happyeconomist@gmail.com.

Who knows, maybe we can solve the riddle of my chronic back pain or at least get happier trying to find a solution!

Mike Stolte is Executive Director of the Centre for Innovative & Entrepreneurial Leadership (CIEL – www.theCIEL.com). He also writes as the Happy Economist (www.HappyEconomist.com).

Originally published in the Nelson Daily News.

Nelson - A Boutique Community?

Will Nelson Become a Hollow Boutique Community?

Made in the Kootenays Housing Crisis Requires Home-made Solutions

Now that I have my house in the Kootenays should I care about housing for others? If prices are too high here, won’t the current financial crisis straighten things out, like it’s doing to formerly overheated housing markets south of the border? If there aren’t enough rentals, won’t the market respond and build some?

These are all questions that emerged at the “100 Mile Ideas Diet” conversation café on innovative affordable housing solutions that CIEL (www.theCIEL.com) organized at Oso Negro (www.osenegrocoffee.com) last week (this was the 4th of 5 forums on issues related to community vitality). Housing is such a broad and relevant topic (we all need housing) that the café was only able to scrape the surface of the issue, in the process tapping into some passionate beliefs and values when it comes to housing and possible solutions.

“The market has failed, and failed colossally here”, began housing consultant Derek Murphy. In the last great market failure, governments stepped in. Murphy gave the caffeinated crowd of 75-80 some history and context. A housing shortage caused by the swooning ranks of boomers in the ‘70s led provincial and federal governments of the day to become proactive, not only providing units (through non-profits and cooperatives) and incentives for housing developments, but also offering generous subsidies to low and even middle income earners to buy homes (up to $10k). This time around that same supply crisis we experience here in Nelson is more of a regional issue. It’s confined mainly to the west and differs from community to community. Therefore, we shouldn’t expect it to be addressed by deficit-laden Ottawa or Victoria any time soon said Murphy.

What does that mean for us? With rentals in short supply (and disappearing yearly), developers only building higher-end units (and all that’s moving much more slowly – if at all- in a slow economy), prices still hovering in the $300 k range (unaffordable for most first-time buyers), and the issue being complex (spans geographical and political boundaries – Salmo, Castlegar, the Valley, Nelson are interconnected), are there any signs of hope?

To make matters worse, many of us who bought when things were cheaper (like me), are often oblivious of the issue. Or they believe we should raise the drawbridge and not let anyone else in. But if young families, and many of those who helped to build the vitality that we appreciate in Nelson (seniors, artisans, people who work in lower paid sectors that fuel much of our service-based economy) can’t afford to make this place home, we become a hollow boutique community. “The word is out,” said panellist Stacey Lock, community outreach worker, “Don’t move to Nelson unless you have accommodation.”

Some of the innovative solutions suggested were interesting: allow innovative non-profits to flourish (like years ago), provide land trusts (public owns the land, therefore units are more affordable) like they do in Europe (CBT was suggested as the catalyst), offer shared accommodation (in Philadelphia, trusts operate larger renovated houses accommodating 7-8 people), provide housing where a full range of services can be provided to the homeless (like Portland Hotel in Vancouver – panellist Michelle Mungall pointed out that it costs 33% less to house those in need than provide for medical, health, and justice services to the homeless. She also stated that one in five clients of emergency housing services locally are the working poor).

There were also some more affordable construction options offered; the new Castlegar seniors residence is coming in at 2/3rds of typical development costs, yurts (a fully insulated yurt for less than $20 k), supporting local builders (Mandala, Top Notch, etc.), or accepting more cheap modular (pre-fabricated) housing. Tata, the Indian manufacturer of a sub-$5,000 car, is selling out of its new basic $5,000 five hundred square foot pre-fabricated three story walk-up apartment units in the Indian housing market.

Nelson is going to have to get over its extreme Nimbyism (Not In My Backyard) if it wants to move forward on the issue concluded panellist Derek Murphy. He asked some provocative questions:

• Is Nelson willing to accept 40-60 unit multi-family dwellings (which we currently seem to oppose)?
• Are we willing to expand City boundaries to allow for more serviced land (and therefore more affordable units)?
• Are we willing to accept and push for more modularized homes (e.g. mobile homes and other pre-fabricated choices), getting over our hang-up for custom (more expensive) homes?

All food for thought and worth having a continued community conversation and respectful debate on. Closing our eyes and ignoring the issue won’t make it go away. Only good focussed leadership will help.

To follow the continuing discussion: http://ciel1.blogspot.com/

To listen to the café’s conversations, stay tuned in the coming weeks to KCR for the ‘100 Mile Ideas Diet’ and CIEL’s web-site (podcasts of the show).

Mike Stolte is the Executive Director of the Nelson-based Centre for Innovative & Entrepreneurial Leadership (CIEL – www.theCIEL.com).