Efforts to attract the young bear fruit
Census numbers show young people make up large part of increase in population in metropolitan Kelowna area
Kelowna’s got it going on. The economy is booming, the sun is shining and the college, university, lake, golf courses, hiking and biking trails, restaurants and bars beckon.
The unique combination of commerce, lifestyle and education has made the city younger, hipper and richer over the past five years.
Census numbers for 2016 released Wednesday by Statistics Canada show the population of the metropolitan Kelowna area, or Central Okanagan, was 194,880.
That’s an 8.5 per cent jump from the population of 179,835 in 2011.
A big chunk of the 15,045 increase is young people — not just new births, but young families moving here, people relocating here to boost their careers, and entrepreneurs in their 20s, 30s and 40s investing, launching companies and hiring.
It’s a far cry from the Kelowna of old, literally, when the city attracted far more retirees than young people on the prowl for opportunity.
“It’s a dramatic shift,” said Drew Vincent, an officer with the Okanagan Youth Collective, the arm of the Central Okanagan Economic Development Commission that helps attract and retain young professionals.
“Our community is doing so much more to support young professionals. The explosion in the high-tech industry has been the driver, but there’s also jobs in all other sectors, especially health care and the trades, and we can back it all up with an active lifestyle.”
Kelowna saw substantial increases in all key demographics of youth, ages 20-24, 25-29, 30-34 and 35-39.
In the 30-34 demographic alone, the increase in population swelled from 9,960 in 2011 to 12,135 in 2016.
That’s important because those 30 to 34 are the prime age for starting families, buying homes, really hitting stride in their careers and starting to mentor the younger generation to do the same.
“Kelowna skewing younger is a concerted effort by different organizations,” said Mayor Colin Basran.
“The Central Okanagan Economic Development Commission, the tech industry and Accelerate Okanagan, the city, Okanagan College, UBC Okanagan and the Okanagan Centre for Innovation have all had a hand in it.”
Basran himself could be considered part of the youth movement and the diverse face of Kelowna. He became the city’s youngest mayor when he was elected in 2014 at age 37, and is Kelowna’s first Indo-Canadian mayor.
In every other province, the proportion was two per cent or less.
Hutchinson and Sharp, both 45, are keenly aware of their disconnect with typically older grandparents, as well as with parents of children who are their granddaughters’ friends.
But the biggest challenge is ensuring the girls are happy and emotionally stable, said Hutchinson, describing how she learned through their counselling sessions that her alcoholic daughter would leave them hungry and alone in the car while “she had sex with her boyfriend.”
Still, despite the obvious challenges of raising a second family, there are also many rewards.
“There’s a lot of joy and there’s also a lot of peace of mind because I don’t have sleepless nights worrying about where they are or what condition they’re in.”
Skip-generation families come in many different shapes and sizes and cross all socioeconomic and ethnocultural boundaries, said Spinks.
Grandparents may have a deep, vibrant relationship with their grandchildren or a weak and tenuous one, she said. The age of both the adult and the grandchild can colour the nature of that relationship and how a newly configured family melds together — or not.
“When a grandparent steps in and it’s an infant or a toddler or a preschooler, that can be a very different experience than when a grandparent steps in with a teenager or a tween,” she said.
“Where a relationship does exist between the child and the grandparent, it may require renegotiation or restructuring,” said Spinks, pointing out that a change in their family makeup and where they live — as well as parental loss — can spark emotional, behavioural and psychological reactions in children, who may also have experienced trauma.
“It’s one thing to go over to Grandma’s for a Sunday afternoon or to be there for a couple of weeks in the summer. It’s another when that grandparent assumes the responsibility of raising a child.”
Colleen Longhouse and husband Michael Dawson have been rearing her four-year-old grandson Landon since he was almost two. After a lengthy and expensive court battle, she was granted full guardianship in April 2016 because Landon had been living in hellish conditions with her daughter, a heroin addict with multiple mentalhealth issues, and his father, a violent repeat offender who has been incarcerated dozens of times.
“I raised my children, and now is supposed to be the time in your life you can sit back and relax and enjoy your grandchildren. But you also have a bit more freedom to do the things and interests that you had earlier in your life that you couldn’t do because you had your own children,” said Longhouse, an elementary school teacher from New Lowell, Ont., west of Barrie, who admitted she can get angry and frustrated over the unexpected turn her life has taken.
“My husband and I rarely go out because Landon suffers from attachment disorder . . . . There’s been a lot of struggle for us as a couple.”
Even so, Longhouse, 54, said she wouldn’t change anything given the choice again.
Landon, who had been “very traumatized,” has made tremendous progress and “has surpassed what anyone thought he would be able to do,” said his grandmother.
“He is such a joy. He’s got such a great personality. We do lots of things and he does make us laugh,” said Longhouse, adding that she and her husband want to formally adopt him, and they have the financial resources to make sure his future is secure.
At 72, Sharon Green is the sole parent in a “skip-skip” generation family: she has legal custody of her three-year-old greatgranddaughter Avery, whose mother tried to give her away as an infant to a distant relative on the Six Nations of the Grand River reserve, where she lives. Neither Green’s son — the little girl’s grandfather — nor either of her grandmothers was able to care for the child.
“One of the problems is Ontario Works only gives me $263 a month (for a dependent child) and I’m a pensioner, of course,” she said by phone from her home in Cloyne, Ont., northeast of Toronto. “It can be difficult. I rely on my daughters quite a bit to help me.”
Keeping up with a three-yearold can be taxing even for 20something mothers, but Green said she’s in “pretty good shape” for her age and she and her great-granddaughter “do quite a bit together.”