COVID-19 is reshaping our very understanding of space.

Office buildings have been hollowed out by physical distancing measures and the threat of rising infection rates. So, too, have social purpose spaces – from soup kitchens to shelters to employment training programs – who struggle to deliver services in person. 

As the pandemic ends and life slowly begins to return to normal, what will social purpose spaces look like in a new reality? And perhaps more importantly, what opportunities exist for these spaces to not only assist in community recovery, but rebuild communities in a green, inclusive, and equitable way?

Future of Good sat down with four leading experts on social purpose spaces as part of August 25’s #BuildBackBetter webinar. Here are five key takeaways when it comes to transforming and positioning social purpose spaces to support recovery. 

We need to reimagine the Commons

The Tragedy of the Commons, a centuries-old economic parable for the slow privatization of once-communal resources, is alive and well today. When considering social purpose spaces, Paul Rabinovitch, principal of real estate investment at New Island Capital, said it can be extremely difficult for corporate ventures to see the inherent good of a common space. “How do we value that creation of meaningful public spaces – and public spaces that add more than just the economics?” he asked. “That is a question that we continue to wrestle with.”

COVID-19 is also teaching us about the importance of communal resources – be they clean water, energy, food, shelter, or medicine. “We have to start thinking about that – and then we have to build communal resources into social purpose spaces so that people understand their role when interacting with it, and their responsibilities in relation to it,” said Barbara Swartzentruber, executive director of Guelph’s Smart Cities Office.

Swartzentruber outlined a vision where municipalities and community organizations work together to maintain a whole portfolio of ‘civic assets’. “So, when I wake up in the morning and walk to work, I’m walking through a whole variety of public and private spaces that don’t feel all that different from each other – that are all about a vision,” Swartzentruber said. “I might walk through a community garden where people are growing food. I might walk into a building that has a daycare centre in it – and I don’t feel like I’m in a public space or a private space, I feel like I’m in a community space.”

COVID-19 can be the leverage we need for massive social transformation

In just eight months, COVID-19 has provoked profound change. In Edmonton, where Ashley Salvador, co-founder of YEGarden Suites, lives, city council has approved new bike lanes at unprecedented speeds. “It’s like we’ve unlocked this superpower where we’re willing to actually experiment,” she said.

The response to the COVID-19 pandemic around the world will also need to consider a far more serious crisis – climate change. Pooran Desai, Author of One Planet Living, said ignoring ecological collapse will soon be impossible. “I don’t think it’s going to be easy to ignore the problems that we’ve got,” he said. “We’ve seen society really shaken up.”

Swartzentruber said municipal governments are already reacting to the pandemic in a systematic way. When COVID-19 struck, the City of Guelph saw not only a need for testing centres, but increased demand for food security organizations. A private owner donated a warehouse for them to use as part of a massive scale emergency food delivery program. In the midst of the pandemic, Guelph is also trying to build a no-waste food economy to improve the city’s environmental footprint – and the resilience of local communities. 

The fall may bring an attempt at returning to ‘normal’, pre-pandemic life, but Swartzentruber doesn’t think we’ll be able to return to traditional workplaces or keep surviving on Zoom calls and physical distancing. “Neither of those things fit for us.”

Social purpose spaces must improve planetary health – and human health

Transforming social purpose spaces for recovery requires an understanding of the human and natural worlds as interconnected. “In order to do that, I would say the space between buildings is important – if not more important – for recovery,” Desai said. He argued the climate crisis will need to be at the heart of recovering from COVID-19. 

This concept of planetary health is already one of the drivers Rabinovitch considers when making impact investment decisions, along with the health and wellness of residents and the role of technology. “How do those drivers influence the decisions we’re making? What are they telling us?” he asked. New Island Capital’s investment criteria is focused on resilience, he said, not only in building resilient real estate, but also in how their investments connect communities.

The term ‘planetary’ doesn’t just apply to the natural world. One of the lenses urban planners use to design cities is human health. “Our built environment is supposed to be functioning as a form of preventative medicine,” said Salvador. “In many ways, it’s doing the opposite – and COVID has really brought that to light.”

She proposed reducing car dependency and eliminating single-family zoning, measures that would lead to the transformation of a city’s social environment. As Desai also pointed out, cutting down on driving would lead to a reduction in air pollution – both an environmental and health benefit. “That’s the number one intervention from which so many interventions cascade,” he said.

The impact of social purpose spaces is visible, but still tough to measure

How do you measure the worth of a social purpose space? It isn’t easy. Rabinovitch admitted the community benefits aren’t yet reflected in accepted metrics used by investors around the world to assess value. “It’s just something that we feel good about,” he said. 

Desai suggested social and natural capital accounting, a bookkeeping system that takes into account social and environmental benefits, could solve it. At the moment, it’s mainly an academic subject, but he expected to see it surge in popularity. Bookkeeping may seem to be a force of nature in the business world, but Desai points out that it’s mainly governed by tradition, not worth. “Accounting is really about convention,” Desai said. “It’s not necessarily about being scientifically rigorous.”

All the investment world needs, he said, is a new set of conventions – aimed at quantifying the social and environmental benefits of a social purpose space, rather than simply focusing on economics.

Social purposes spaces need to be (re)designed for everyone

Ever since the pandemic began, Salvador said her organization has been fielding calls from homeowners looking to build backyard housing for senior relatives. Why? Physical distancing, coupled with the realities of living in an old-age home, has left their parents or grandparents feeling lonely and isolated. “This desire speaks to a larger conversation. Are our neighbourhoods actually supporting well-being?” she asks.

Her answer is no. Social purpose spaces must embrace residents from all walks of life, especially those from communities who face systemic discrimination. Rabinovitch said social purpose spaces can often ignore elderly residents. “I think there’s a built-in bias in our spaces towards the young, the creative, the techie, the hip,” he said. “We need to recognize that we have an older demographic.”

And Salvador also reminded the panel that the COVID-19 pandemic has been especially hard on women and non-binary people, as well as Black and Indigenous communities. Job losses have disproportionately impacted them. “Any sort of recovery must have these people at the table from the outset,” she said.

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