This Week I Heard: Landmark, Rutland, and a Room Full of Women, Kelowna
Week five of Teresa May's 1,000 Conversations Tour across Landmark, Rutland, and a women's event in Kelowna: what 105 residents said about homelessness and safety, accessible housing, speaking at council, term limits, and belonging.
Three days, three very different rooms this week. A morning at Landmark, where a market was running and I got to talk with a lot of business people. An event with more than seventy women. And the opening of a park back in Rutland, where I met people who have lived in that neighbourhood for sixty years and are fiercely proud of it.
105 conversations this week. Running total: 295 / 1,000 · 5 / 13 neighbourhoods
What I heard most
It doesn’t matter where I am. Landmark, downtown, Rutland, the Mission — homelessness and crime sit at the top in every single one. Five weeks in, that is the most consistent finding of this entire tour. People want housing built, they want real recovery options, and they want the province to move on mental health and addiction. What I hear underneath it isn’t anger. It’s exhaustion, and a wish that somebody would do something that works.
Accessible housing that’s actually accessible. This was the sharpest thing anyone said to me all week. We build an accessible unit with lower counters and lower light switches — and then we stop at the front door. One woman pointed out that her mailbox is mounted at a height she can’t reach from a wheelchair. Accessibility that ends at the threshold of the suite isn’t accessibility. I’ve worked in residential construction long enough to know this gets decided in design and approvals, and it gets decided without asking the people who’ll live there.
Let us speak. Several people told me they’d like a short window at council meetings — even two minutes — just to be heard. Not a debate. Not a delegation process that takes a month to arrange. Two minutes to stand up and say what’s wrong.
Change the faces. Term limits came up more than once. People worry that too long in a chair makes for stale thinking, and they want new ideas cycling through. Council can’t set its own term limits — that’s provincial law — but the sentiment behind it is worth hearing: show us that things can change.
Transparency. Again, fifth week running. People want to see how decisions get made and where the money goes.
What people love
The same answer everywhere: a big-city feel in a small place. The size. The climate. The lifestyle. The sports. And how friendly people are here.
What surprised me
I want to be honest about something that came up this week, because it would be easy to leave out.
A few people told me Kelowna doesn’t always feel welcoming. That there’s a cliquiness to it, a class divide, a bougie edge that makes some people feel they’re on the outside of something. And a few told me about racism and discrimination they’ve experienced here themselves.
I’m not going to tidy that up into a policy point. I asked people what they’d change, and this is what they told me. It stayed with me, and I wanted the people who said it to know it was written down.
Thank you to everyone who talked with me this week — at the coffee shop, at the event, and at the park.
Next week:
- Wednesday, August 26, 9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. — Bean Scene Coffee Works & Farmers Market
- Friday, August 28, 9:00–11:00 a.m. — Craft 42 Roasters, 2280 Leckie Road
Can’t make it? Share your thoughts anytime at teresamay.ca/1000.
Teresa